JOINT LEGISLATIVE HEARING In the Matter of the 2025-2026 EXECUTIVE BUDGET ON ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:And I missed Senator Cleare, I apologize.

And now Tom O'Mara, ranker on the Senate Finance Committee, will introduce the Senate Republicans.

SENATOR O'MARA:Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Joining from the minority side of the aisle in the Senate is our ranking member on Education, Senator Jim Tedisco; our ranking member on Libraries, Senator Dean Murray; and we're joined by members Bill Weber and George Borrello.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:I need a second.

(Discussion off the record.)

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Hold on. Just a little paperwork.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:A little paperwork. And while the Senator is looking for the rules of the road here, which someone didn't give me earlier, I missed Assemblypersons Jackson and Pheffer Amato.

For everyone speaking, these are the rules of the road. Governmental employees get 10 minutes to speak, and the questioners will be -- the relevant chairs question for 10 minutes. That would be Assemblymember Benedetto, myself, Carroll, Mayer, Liu, Bynoe and Krueger.

The rankers on each of the committees get five minutes to ask questions. After that, the chairs get a second round, if they so choose, of three minutes. Rankers get a total of five minutes and no second round. All other members of the committees get three minutes for questions and no second round.

I believe that's complete.

And we will call our first witness, Ms. Betty Rosa, from the New York State Education Department. Welcome.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:You have to hold the button until it turns green.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:There it is. Okay. Waiting for the green light.

Good morning, Chairs Pretlow, Krueger, Mayer, Liu and Benedetto, and good morning to all the members of the Senate and Assembly here today.

I'm pleased to be joined by my staff, Senior Deputy Commissioner for Education Dr. Jeffrey Matteson; Chief Financial Officer Christina Coughlin; Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Special Education and Access -- new combination -- Ceylane Meyers-Ruff. And we're also joined by Deputy Commissioner for P-12 Instructional Support Angelique Johnson-Dingle and Deputy Commissioner for P-12 Operational Support Jason Harmon.

Before I begin, I'd like to recognize Chancellor Lester Young and the members of the New York State Board of Regents who I'm sure are watching today's hearing with great interest.

The overarching goal of education and the Board of Regents is to advance educational equity, access and opportunity for all students in this amazing state. Our budget requests a bill to deliver on this urgent mission. I'd like to briefly describe how the department's priorities drive educational equity and provide local leaders with the stability and predictability they need to run their schools and their districts to support our students and our communities.

So let's begin by talking about Foundation Aid, the state's largest and most impactful investment in our schools. It's no secret that the metrics which drive the state aid funding formula are in desperate need of updating. The department has been engaged in efforts to improve the formula so as to provide greater educational opportunities for all students.

Last year's enacted budget invested 2 million for the Rockefeller Institute to conduct a comprehensive study of Foundation Aid. The Foundation Aid changes included in the Executive Budget represent only a portion of what we consider to be the roadmap that will lead to a new formula. Additional work needs to be done. It is critical that we, in our department, are part of these conversations.

The Executive Budget includes a number of important initiatives, including investment in advanced coursework, Early College High School programs, and free community college for certain high-demand fields. We absolutely applaud these efforts.

At the same time, however, the proposal needs to include several programs and initiatives the department recommended and that we believe are vital to the state's continued growth and success. It's a simple proposition, but it bears repeating: If we want our children to graduate from school prepared for the future, we must support them along the entire educational continuum. For us, the educational continuum means not only college, career and civic readiness; in practice, this means providing them with access to programs, courses, facilities and high-quality staff that will set them up for success in their lives.

In the budgetary context it means doing things like lifting the cap on career-and-tech educator salaries so that every student interested in CTE has a chance to participate in these programs. We recognize that individuals with CTE skills and knowledge are vital to New York's economy. Their importance to our state's future and growth are indisputable.

But to put it simply, the state must do more to support this incredible resource and make CTE courses accessible to all interested students.

Here are other ways that we can support our schools and students in this year's budget. Let's start with the youngest New Yorkers. While we applaud the Executive's effort to expand childcare access and affordability, I think we can all agree that it is well past time to make universal pre-K truly universal, once and for all.

A federal court ruling also required that we provide special education and related services to students with disabilities until they turn 22 years old unless they have already earned a diploma.

I do have to give a shout out for those districts that are doing this work despite the fact that we have not done this as a state. I also have to give a shout out to New York City, who recently made that commitment.

Currently, however, the state law provides funding only through the school year in which these students turn 21. It is imperative that we provide these students with the necessary funding to support their educational journey.

Additionally, we must make every effort to ensure continuous recruitment of high-quality educators in all of our schools so that every single school -- every single child has a high-quality educator in front of them.

I urge you to provide additional funding for Teach.org, a centralized hub where prospective teachers can explore the profession. In its short period of time, we have learned at the department that Teach.org has become an exceptionally popular site for those future teachers to explore, and we must continue to use this vital resource.

The Executive Budget needs to provide appropriate levels of funding to maintain and enhance building facilities and infrastructure, including our State Schools for the Deaf and Blind as well as our three Tribal Nations.

We also need funding to repair our historic State Education Building, as we have recently gone through an incredible situation with leaks where we've had to move people and mobilize an entire group of individuals.

While we appreciate the 20 million that's included in the Executive Budget to do these repairs, a reasonable estimate of the work is closer to 40 million.

And we need funding as well to support the next phase of the department's IT transformation. We urge you to help us to look at creating efficiencies around the issue of transforming our data system. The New York State Museum and the Office of Cultural Ed are making significant strides to advance critical projects. We want the Museum to not only be a place where our children -- and I will submit an exhibit -- where our children thrive, because it is an educational institution that supports the community, where children have an opportunity to have a wing where they can have Saturday classes and do all kinds of activities that is very connected to education.

This financial instability in our building and the Museum has led to a persistent multi-million-dollar deficit, projected to exceed 7 million by March 2026. I have been here four years asking for this response to a museum that has been in many ways neglected financially.

Finally, you can help advance the educational equity by funding the graduation measures, which is an initiative we have been going throughout the state and discussing because of the multiple pathways and multiple ways to support our students. We consider this some of the most important work that the department and our Regents have undertaken, and we are so proud of that work.

And now I am happy to return a million -- a minute and 24 seconds back to you for your further questions. Thank you.

(Laughter.)

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I was going to return a million dollars, but I don't have it.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you for your testimony.

Assemblymember Magnarelli, are you -- I see you're sitting in for --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I'm sitting in for Mr. Benedetto.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Yeah.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I tried to get this going. Yes, I'm sitting in for Mr. Benedetto, as chair of Education. You got me, I'm next in line. I get to stay here all day; it's great.

First of all, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate everybody who testifies in front of our committees, and I thank you for that.

My questions. The Executive wants to implement a ban on smartphones in schools as a priority for New York. I'm starting right into my questions. Is that okay?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Yes, that's what you're --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Okay, that's what I'm going to do. I didn't know if you wanted a statement or something. I could make a statement.

So we're talking about smartphones. What's your thoughts on that? Does the Executive proposal allow districts enough flexibility? Is that the way we're going? Or is there going to be some parameters that are given from the state level?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So let me start -- thank you for your question. Let me start by saying that we are actually looking at this from the perspective of -- instead of a banned distraction, it is -- in many classes I think the teachers have articulated that having the opportunity to teach, for students to learn, unless the instruments are being used as tools for the instructional purpose, that in fact there are possibilities of ways that we can work on having those distractions not be part of the learning process.

I must say that I have been visiting throughout the state, from Utica all the way to Indian River and New York City and other schools. The beauty of this is that many -- and two and a half years ago, I was actually in Middletown, where the students articulated taking ownership and doing this and being part of this conversation.

So I am very proud of the fact that superintendents, principals, teachers, communities have really undertaken this work to do this at a local level, very specific to the communities, buy-in from students -- and I'm going to give a shout out to Geneva, Bo Wright, who did this amazing work around the issue of having the students develop a plan, present it to the board, adopted by the community, and that is an example of how we involve students in these kinds of situations.

So we are clearly committed to making sure that we also include as part of this endeavor the issue of media literacy, because we want our students to understand issues of malinformation, disinformation, and anything else that's connected to literacy. So we are in the process of working on this guide to partner with that, but also include mental health services.

So with that, I just want to say that our department is committed to a comprehensive way to what could be perceived as a simple solution. And we want our students, our teachers, our principals, the superintendents, to be very much a part of the solution.

Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Okay. I was married to a teacher for over 35 years. She passed away a number of years ago. But she told me once that we were losing the schools and teaching in the classroom the day that we allowed people to chew gum. Okay?

So the idea that now you can wear hats, you can bring in coats, you can use cellphones -- I mean, I think the focus of what's supposed to go on in the classroom has long been lost.

So I commend you for finally coming around and saying, Hey, you know, you've got to learn, you've got to put those things away. So whatever you can do, I'm with you.

Another proposal, to increase the threshold of community eligibility provisions looming at the federal level. How could the state deliver universal school meals with potentially a substantially less amount for of funding for school meals coming in the future?

What do you see as strategies to protect against decreases in federal funding? You know, I'm going to just say this. You know, my feeling is it's coming, so we're going to put this in effect this year, from what I see.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:How do we pay for it going forward? That's my question to you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So I'm going to ask -- we have been in deep conversation about this, because we know that there is a commitment of about 130 million to kind of add to in order to make it universal. And so we do -- you know, we do believe that maintaining those funds -- although recently I think we're concerned with, you know, the -- what's going to happen if that cap is raised.

So I'm going to ask Christina.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Thank you. This is obviously a very complicated question for the state because it's a revenue issue, as you note. And we defer to the Legislature on the revenue questions, but we commend the intent of the community eligibility work that's been done in New York thus far. It's really served the needs of our poorest students. And going forward, it's hard to predict what will happen and the federal concerns are --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I guess what my question is, is this. We are trying to take care of the poorest students now.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Correct.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:What we're adding to it is everybody. Which is -- by the way, I think it's a great idea. I like it. If we had the money, that's fine.

But if we're going to be $100 million short next year, is that where we're going to put the money?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I think what you're saying is exactly that it's a hundred -- right now, now, it's 130 million that we're --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Right. There you go.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And so the question is can we sustain that.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Correct. That's my question.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And that is a question that I really truly believe that obviously the Governor has put this investment -- and that would be a perfect question for DOB and the Governor.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:So next year when we come back and we have to cut $130 million out of the budget because we don't have it from the federal government, we'll be understanding.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We'll be what?

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:You will be understanding of that fact.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I don't know that we would say we would be understanding. We would be -- we would be in a situation --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I'll be disappointed too.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Okay, how much -- I've got more time. All right. Is the $13.5 million in the budget enough to cover the cost of every school district, charter school and BOCES in the state's implementation of the Executive's proposed smart-device prohibition? Is that enough money for the smartphone deal?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We estimated that's about $10 a student. So that will be the estimate -- guesstimate per student. So depending how dollars are used -- I mean, you know, you were talking about chewing gum. Some schools will use -- you remember the old plastic shoe, you know?

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Right. Yeah.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:They'll drop those in at the back of the class. That --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:So we've got to wait and see what happens.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, it's not -- some schools have already made some investments, I do have to say, already, because some schools have been doing this for a while. So there have been some investments already.

Some students have it in their lockers and do not see their phones till the end of the day. Some students -- we were in some schools where there was some free zones so that they're able to use it during their lunch hours or different -- so the cost is $10 a student.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Okay. One more question. Can you share insight on how the Executive's proposal to require partnership agreements between school districts and higher education institutions regarding dual enrollment programs would be carried out?

And I understand that there's information that you're requiring. It's kind of mandating that the school districts get this information. So it's another report. What are you getting out of that? And I can understand what the students are getting, but do we need all of this, is my basic question.

I don't understand why this is even needed.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Thank you for that question, because it's a real opportunity to go a little deeper in the college and high school piece.

One of the issues we have right now is even though we're like top five state in the country with students getting access to at least one dual enrollment course, we don't have a sense of what those courses are doing on behalf of students. Okay? And so they're getting access just because they happen to take a certain course --

(Overtalk.)

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Can I ask a question here?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Yup.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Has anybody complained?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Well, what we have complained about is when we've done an analysis and --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Not you. Has anybody complained to you about the programs?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:About those programs?

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Yeah.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Yes, because there's --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I mean, has a student come and said, I didn't get what I thought I was going to get?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Yes. Because they're not transferable. We're trying to create a system where what the students take is transferable credit. because right now they happen to get a credit but it's not transferable to --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I know. I Understand that. I'll come back.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you very much.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Chair Shelley Mayer for 10 minutes.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you, Chairs.

And thank you very much, all of you, for your work.

The first question is about New York City Public Schools. Under the November database, prior to the Governor's proposal, the expectation is they would receive about 350 million more than the Governor's run after her proposed budget.

Do you at SED have any additional proposed changes to mitigate the impact on New York City, particularly given that they've had a growth in enrollment as well as special ENL needs over the course of the last year?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. Let me start by saying yes. But at the same time, you have to look at the wealth. You know, as you know, it went from -- I think it was from 33 percent, right, to 23. So that's going to be a factor that's going to have a negative impact.

But then it's -- you know, obviously because you have additional students where you know in the past they did not, that's going to be a plus.

So I think looking at the -- what we call the modeling, you know, in terms of the formula, we're going to see the anticipated -- I think they anticipated smaller than what we predicted.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:The Regents' state aid proposal took a look at that, what happened when you --

SENATOR MAYER:Can you get closer to the mic? I'm sorry.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Oh, I'm sorry. Pardon me.

SENATOR MAYER:Yeah, thank you.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:That's driven, as the commissioner noted, by the update in the poverty counts that are --

SENATOR MAYER:Yes, I understand that.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:That update was something that the Regents had been recommending for several years. So we were pleased to see that.

But when the Regents prepared their state aid proposal, they also recommended a change to the Regional Cost Index, because that Regional Cost Index that was set decades ago doesn't reflect the differences in costs now.

So the Regents' proposal did in fact provide an opportunity that would mitigate that.

SENATOR MAYER:Yes. So -- so follow up on the Regional Cost Index issue, which the Rockefeller report recommended that there be some changes but the Governor's proposal does not include a discussion of changes to the Regional Cost Index.

Under your recommendations or the Regents' recommendations, the change in the Regional Cost Index would benefit both New York City and many other communities, including the Hudson Valley, is that right?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:That is correct.

SENATOR MAYER:On the universal school meals, questions were asked previously. There are currently about 20 districts that simply do not participate in the program, so they are not in this free universal program that the Governor has proposed.

Does the department have any plan to either compel or encourage these districts to participate? Because even though they don't participate, it doesn't mean they don't have students who would really benefit.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I'm going to start by saying one of the things that obviously, because we are so committed to this universal -- because we know that, to your point -- you know, this has been a very complex situation in terms of the -- how the funding, right -- with having more than one funding stream where districts make decisions about these issues, as you know. There's been some improvement. I think once upon a time it was seven and now we're down to, you know, I think -- what do we have, two at this point that we're looking at it.

We constantly encourage districts to work with us, with our -- both our department in terms of fiscal to make sure that they do take advantage of these programs.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:We would have to -- when this is done, which is another change to the Child Nutrition Program, we would have to communicate and give guidance to the districts. It would go out to all the districts, so we'd alert everyone what their eligibility is.

And since it's universal for our state, certainly those districts may see the benefit of joining now that it's universal, fully universal. But, you know, we can't force them to join. They have choices, if they prefer to pay for things locally or have their parents -- but I think raising awareness -- to your point, this is an opportunity if this moves forward.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

Two issues which school districts are very concerned about, which is -- were covered in part in the Rockefeller report but are not in the Governor's proposal, which is addressing ENL needs not only in the City of New York but in frankly so many of our communities, where districts need to hire new teachers and new aides that have capacity to be bilingual or to be certified ENL. And the much greater nuance on special ed reimbursement for a school that is providing significant number and at great expense to meet the needs of their special needs students.

Have you -- I know you've made recommendations, but the Governor did not. What is your analysis of the impact of not providing additional money for both ENL needs and special needs of districts throughout the state?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, we believe that creating the foundation is essential. And many times we have obviously very specific needs, especially in terms of support for not only just bilingual, to your point, but sometimes bilingual special ed students.

SENATOR MAYER:Yes.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So the combination, as well as special-needs students.

The issue is is that the earlier we're able to respond to these issues, the earlier we have -- you know, we definitely have an opportunity to address them. So the investment of not only having staff trained -- and, you know, we've done some higher ed. With our higher ed population we've tried to encourage teachers to take additional courses to become dually certified, in some cases. But we also want to make sure that we have the commitment and resources to be able to hire the -- train and hire and keep these individuals that are giving services for language acquisition and students with special needs.

So the earlier we do that, the earlier we realize that these are the subgroups that truly need these kinds of support. And we constantly talk about providing not only training but recruiting and retaining these individuals in our schools. So we have a constant plan. We have conferences that we do to encourage individuals to become part of the network through our {unintelligible}, as you know, to become part of the work that we're doing with these two populations.

SENATOR MAYER:But let me switch to full-day pre-K, which you know has been a commitment of certainly the Senate Majority for some time.

In the report that I believe SED did, recognizing that there is these multiple funding streams, the funding is inadequate, there are many shortfalls in our existing program. Has SED taken any steps so far to address what we could do to make this work more effectively so that more schools will actually take up the opportunity to provide full-day pre-K?

And what is your proposal with respect to the building issues that some districts raise as a barrier to providing full-day pre-K?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. And this is especially in our early -- I'm going to ask Angelique to start, particularly with our early childhood.

Go ahead.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:Yes, so thank you for that question.

Through our Early Learning Program, over the past few years we have made some dramatic gains. We have provided statewide professional development for teachers specifically targeting things that we know are most important for children to build those foundational skills to support as they move up through elementary school and beyond.

We know that we have pockets where the funding -- although we are grateful that we've made some changes to the language that allowed districts to access funding and be able to kind of braid some of those funding streams together, there are still two separate laws that actually oversee and govern the way that early learning funding is provided to schools.

And we have, as part of our ask this year, are requesting that maybe we take a look at those laws and see how we are able to get funding to those schools that need it the most. We are looking at possibly an increase in funding for expansion seats, looking to increase some of those allocational rates that have been set since 2016, 2017, and we know the costs to deliver those services have increased over the years as well.

We will do everything that we can from our seats. We visit and monitor over 200 schools every single year. We provide them with direct support on how to improve their instruction -- thank you.

SENATOR MAYER:You can finish your sentence. Finish your sentence.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank -- thank you.

Assemblyman Carroll.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Good morning, Commissioner Rosa, and thank you for your testimony.

As the Libraries chair, I'd like to ask you about the Executive Budget's library proposal. Specifically, the Executive proposes 104.6 million in operating aid to our 23 public libraries. Advocates at the Library Association request the Legislature to fund libraries at over $176 million.

Do you have a number in mind that would adequately fund our libraries' operating expenses?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, let's put it this way. I think the 176 is closer to a number that I would probably come up with.

Because libraries are very -- they're -- when you think about the kind of support and when you think about the opportunity for children to be introduced, supported, having -- and it's libraries and also having families and having books available. So whenever we have these initiatives about children connecting, building relationships through the reading process, we definitely need to have --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:So do you have a a formula or a best practice of how we should come up with what is the -- to assess the operating needs of our libraries, whether it be volumes of books, librarians? Do you have an assessment?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:There is a formula that generates a number, and the Executive proposal is well below that. I think the -- as the commissioner said, the --

(Overtalk.)

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:It's much closer to that 176.

(Overtalk.)

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Exactly. Close, yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you so much. That is what I thought it was.

Switching gears, you mentioned the capital needs of the State Education Department Building. Of course you know there are great capital needs for our libraries throughout the state, many of them historic buildings, Carnegie libraries. They have a backlog of $1.75 billion of capital needs, and the Governor has only allocated $34 million.

Again, do you have an assessment of figuring out what is a better number to help with the capital needs of our 23 public library systems?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:We were disappointed that the number in the Executive Budget was what it was. Certainly more. I wouldn't say that we have a formula or an assessment that gets at the question that you're asking. But that's a very interesting question. I'd like to think more about that.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you.

Now, Commissioner Rosa, we wouldn't be speaking if we didn't talk about literacy. I want to commend you and your staff for your wonderful report on dyslexia and dysgraphia last month that came from legislation that I sponsored. In that report you recommend that there should be an office of dyslexia and dysgraphia to be a point for best practices, for interventions, for professional development, for screening.

Do you have an idea of how much that would cost the State Education Department?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I think we're -- because the report was just done -- and again, I really want to thank the committee for really advancing -- some of the experts that were part of this committee really, truly were able to share with us some of the issues, whether it was through identification, best practices, ways that we could really, truly address early on some of these issues to support our students.

So that recommendation is one that we're looking at it, we're trying to come up with a number to make sure that in fact this work has the next phase, which is an implementation and continuity.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Well, I would love to work you with on that implementation. I hope we can find a number so that that can become a reality.

In last year's budget the state allocated $10 million for professional development for best practices for literacy education. To your knowledge, have we actually done any professional development with those teachers, I think it was 20,000, to get that professional learning?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So let's be clear, those were the dollars that were -- the $10 million were given to NYSUT.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:I know. I'm aware.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay. So they have been in the process -- as a matter of fact, we just had a conversation, we've been having ongoing conversations of the plan that they have put together, which we have been reviewing. And as a matter of fact -- it was last week, right? -- we sent back some additional questions --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:But have any teachers received any professional development in evidence-based reading instruction?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:The plan has not been --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:-- implemented. So they have not.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:The plan has not been approved.

So I'd like to add also the fact that we're still reviewing and having conversations with the NYSUT staff on this.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:One of the constraints we operate under when we're implementing something like this is that we do still need to enter into a contract with the organization. So we are working on that contract. We have been working very collegially with them. I believe that they will have a course developed and ready to go pretty shortly after the contract is finalized.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:So, you know, let me editorialize. It is unbelievably frustrating -- this is my ninth session here. Commissioner Rosa, you and I have talked ad nauseam about evidence-based literacy interventions -- ad nauseam about the five pillars of literacy, ad nauseam about the fact that our largest school system and the majority of our school systems for a generation chose to use curriculum and literacy interventions that were unproven and didn't work.

It is settled science about what is best to teach early readers how to read. That is known. The idea that we are a year later now and we are still in the phase of understanding what that professional development is going to be, is shocking. It's absolutely shocking.

I understand that there are contracts to sign and there may be, you know, lawyers and others to consult with. But if I wanted to get a Wilson-trained curriculum for teachers, I could call them up today and they would be able to start implementing tomorrow.

This is not some newfangled idea. This pedagogy is known, it has been known, it is being done throughout the country. And we have finally, in New York, I think yourself, what State Ed has done, what some major chancellors of our big school systems have done, have finally agreed that we need to move in the direction of evidence-based literacy instruction that is sequential, systematic, rooted in phonics.

But yet the Legislature allocates millions of dollars to have teachers receive professional development, and none happens in a year. That is shocking. And we know, we know that for kids in kindergarten, first and second grade, this is when reading attainment happens. So that's another year lost for those early readers.

And if we're here again next year and we haven't done it, it will be another year lost. And you know that 50 percent of our children read below grade level and 30 percent don't read at all. One in seven adults in America is functionally illiterate. That is shocking.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, Assemblyman, let me just say that that aspect that you're talking about, that one particular program is really a small portion of the work that we're doing. We are heavily invested as -- within the department. Briefs, literacy training, we've done all kinds of workshops -- a lot of that is going on.

This is a very specific program that was -- that the Governor absolutely committed to, which at the time, if you recall, was called Back to Basics, and then it was -- but that is only a small aspect. And they've had to -- the way this was structured, they had to submit the proposal, they had to put together the proposal. But I can assure you that we have been -- and I'm going to ask Angelique -- we have been doing extensive, massive work in terms -- in this space.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:And to the commissioner's point, I would like the opportunity to just highlight some of the things we have done since the beginning of last school year, so figuring the fall of '23. We have released a number of literacy briefs that were coauthored by Dr. Nonie Lesaux. We rolled it out in a statewide conference that touched over 2500 educators across the entire state. We then followed that up with a curriculum review guide to do exactly some of the points that you've highlighted in helping districts to review the things that they have purchased locally, approved by their local boards, in order to be able to provide instruction in literacy.

Just within this past month, we actually turned around --

(Overtalk.)

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:I have 13 seconds. I understand that. But I think it's very clear that time is of the essence and we need to act quicker, because every year we lose a set of children to illiteracy.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator John Liu, chair of the New York City Education Committee.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I want to start by reminding everybody here that last year we passed legislation, signed by the Governor, that designates the Asian Lunar New Year as a public school holiday. And guess what day today is? Happy New Year!

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Happy New Year.

SENATOR LIU:Congratulations, all the public school kids throughout the State of New York and their families. They get to celebrate this new year, the Year of the Snake -- some people call it the Year of the Baby Dragon.

Whatever you call it, it's a happy day. And I feel there is no better way to celebrate the new year than to spend all day today listening to the input of educational professionals and advocates all throughout the State of New York, especially when this issue is so important to people and families all throughout the State of New York.

So thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Commissioner and your entire team, for making sure that this is well-implemented across the State of New York.

Happy New Year!

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you. Happy New Year.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

You know, I wanted to piggyback off of what Chair Shelley Mayer started asking you about, which is the Foundation Aid. Specifically with respect to New York City, the definition of poverty level imagined in the Executive proposal casts a -- uses the federal poverty guideline, without differentiation, all across the State of New York. And that poverty level is somewhere at an income level of about 32,000, maybe $32,150. Whether you live in New York City or parts of the North Country or Western New York, it's the same level.

And we know that that's just an inadequate measure. In fact, using that kind of measure statewide reduces the amount of Foundation Aid available for New York City public schools by a substantial amount, something to the tune of $400 million annually.

Is there anything that State Education has looked at in terms of perhaps a better measure of poverty, one that, like the Regional Cost Index would do, would differentiate what true levels of poverty for families across the state would experience?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Senator, the Board of Regents has recommended the same poverty metric that is -- was used by the Executive.

But we do recognize, as the staff, that there are those challenges in the metrics that we -- the one that is in the Executive Budget represents an improvement over where we've been, which we think is very important.

But I think your point underlying your question is there may be better ways to measure this going forward. I think that speaks to the commissioner's view that the Rockefeller recommendations and the proposed Executive Budget represent a step in the right direction, but they are not all the way there to improving Foundation Aid so that it truly serves the needs of our students.

SENATOR LIU:Well, I'm sure we'll hear from the City of New York in a few hours from now. But I would encourage the State Education Department to look at what true needs there are, particularly on the issue of families experiencing poverty, and what it takes the schools systems in different parts of the state to educate these children.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So, Senator, if I may add, one of the concerns that I also have is -- to your point, is that the reason we think that our department needs to do some of these modelings is to get to that issue. Because just to have a standardized kind of looking across, to your point, a child in Washington Heights, the Bronx, parts of Queens, parts of, you know, Manhattan and other -- Brooklyn, the poverty even in some of the neighboring districts is very, very different.

SENATOR LIU:Well, that's true, but the New York City Department of Education, they can make those kinds of adjustments when necessary.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:That is correct.

SENATOR LIU:But at least if you treat the entire City of New York and acknowledge the much higher cost of living for families in New York City, that would certainly help the city.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes. And that -- those modelings combining those situations would create some of the differentiation.

SENATOR LIU:Great. And what about the idea of providing additional weights in education funding for students in temporary housing, students in foster care. I know the Rockefeller Institute made very brief mention of those issues, but none of that is included in the Executive proposal.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, especially students that are in temporary housing, there are additional funding that we have.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:As you said, Senator, there are opportunities, and I think that's something that we see already inside of how New York City is distributing resources, right, where there are weighting functions for students who are experiencing homelessness, for English language learners, that I think need to be, again, part of the conversation in terms of the weighting when you're looking at that overall formula, to be able to make adjustments to drive resources to places that are serving, you know, higher concentrations or changing concentrations of students who are experiencing those sort of --

SENATOR LIU:So could State Education reform its support of a portion of the revised Foundation Aid formula to include the costs of educating students in temporary housing and foster care?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Absolutely. And in addition to that, though, we also -- we have funding, McKinney-Vento, for example.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:Right, those are federal resources that continue --

(Overtalk.)

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Federal. I mean, those are federal --

(Overtalk.)

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:Right, to continue to supplement.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. We try to make sure that they take advantage of those dollars as well, because we know that those students -- not only are they in temporary housing, but a lot of times the mobility of those students and the loss of learning even going from one place to another, that is loss of learning that -- in terms of extended day or some of the other -- you know, some of the other practices that we have to build in to assure that we support these young people.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

You know, we've spoken many times about the anti-Asian hate that we've seen these last few years and ways to eradicate that hate being through our public schools. You know that I've been pushing a bill that would require the teaching of the Asian-American experience in public schools. There are bills that require the teaching of African-American history, Latinx culture.

And I know State Education has reservations about those, but State Ed and the Regents have made a tremendous amount of progress with regard to the culturally sustaining -- culturally responsive and sustaining education --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Very good.

SENATOR LIU:-- platform and --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Framework.

SENATOR LIU:-- the framework.

Does that now all come under assault with the new federal administration and what the administration has been saying about these kinds of educational curricula?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So the culturally responsive, that framework stands -- by the way, it has been embedded, has been embraced, I have to tell you, throughout this state. And the kinds of teaching that are in our standards will continue. Those are in our standards.

So our position has been that we're going to move forward with the bedrock of our state, which is the issue of culturally responsive, is absolutely one that our state absolutely embraces because, as I said, every single district, right, has been totally committed to this work. They use it constantly. And they really, truly celebrate the various cultures. And as you know, holidays are a perfect example where we use opportunities in literature, we use it in ways that help our young people to prepare them for a global society.

SENATOR LIU:I thank you for that. You know, I believe that we should go further, but at least we should not go back or retreat in any fashion whatsoever on the culturally responsive, sustaining education.

Let's hope our members of Congress can fight back against what the federal administration is doing or potentially threatening.

And my last question for you would be the threat of removal of Title I funding along with the abolishment of the federal Department of Education. Is that something that State Education has been examining and preparing for?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I'll start by saying that obviously yesterday we were dealing with this issue, I think not -- not just our department, across the entire state, right, and other states.

So we did get notice immediately that the Title I and the -- it was Title I and IDEA. But in the interim, we have been taking stock of the impact that that will have. And I'll answer it --

SENATOR LIU:I'll come back on Round 2.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman Smith, five minutes.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Thank you. And thank you, Commissioner. Thank you to the team for being here. I want to take some time to talk regionalization, because you and I have spent a lot of time -- the department -- hours over the last several months, talking about this, going back and forth.

So I'll start by saying before your tenure as commissioner the State Education Department rolled out a number of programs -- Race to the Top implementation, Common Core, APPR, the licensing of teachers, a lot of new initiatives. And I think a lot of our schools are still -- maybe have some posttraumatic stress over those experiences. So I want to take some time --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:-- to talk about regionalization, what it is, what it is not. I know you and the team have traveled across the state and it's been received differently in different regions of the state. Can you speak about that a little bit? And I'll have some follow-up questions.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. I'm going to start, and then I'm going to turn it to my regionalization guru.

This is not something new. And I know you mentioned Race to the Top. I have been in some -- we've visited some districts that have been doing this for 10 years. And doing it, and doing it well because of the necessity -- you know, the sparsity issue for many of our rural districts really -- you know, they create opportunities to innovate, they create opportunities to cooperate and share. And so the notion of regionalization has been very much a part of the fabric of many, many of our districts and many of our areas throughout, you know.

So that's that in itself, just to say that this is not a new concept --

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Right. So a question that I think -- and sorry to cut you off. Some school districts are concerned that they and their taxpayers might be paying for students of other districts. That is not correct, is that your understanding, that would not be correct?

So a school district might be concerned that they and their local taxpayers could be paying for the students of another district. That is not the intention, is that correct?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, that's part of the literacy that we hope to impart on our students in terms of misinformation, disinformation.

But let me just say, you know, when I was talking about the rural districts and other districts that are doing this, the notion -- I mean, we even have two districts that share a superintendent.

The rural, the -- particularly rural districts, because of the fact that they want to also maintain the quality, a high-quality education for their students -- as a matter of fact, we met yesterday with three of them, right? And in order to give those students that high-quality education, they have to learn to share. They don't have the resources that some of our other districts have.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:So would you give as an example maybe a rural district that does not have AP offerings or college class offerings, but maybe a neighboring district does but maybe they only have four or five students in each, that there could be an opportunity.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:They share -- yes. They're sharing resources, they're innovating, they're figuring out -- they're problem-solvers in trying to figure out how do we, despite the fact that we have fewer students, the sparsity issue and so many other barriers -- we have seen an incredible number of districts that truly have taken how to share their toys.

And again, there are those districts that have a lot of resources, have a lot of wealth, have a lot of ways of enjoying giving, you know, as you said, different AP classes or whatever. So they're not being asked, in any shape or form, to share. In many cases they are, and those places that they are, we celebrate those.

And by the way, just to give you a number, we are fairly close to 80 percent -- 80 percent have opted in throughout the state to do regionalization. Eighty percent.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:And to get to that point, there was an option. So if a school district didn't feel that they could benefit or didn't feel that their neighboring districts would benefit --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:They could opt out.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:-- they could opt out. So there's no obligation for them to --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We do have several -- the largest concentration happened to be in your neck of the woods, you know, in your neighborhood. Not your specific neighborhood --

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Not specifically, right.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:In Long Island.

But the truth of the matter is that we honor the issue that they felt that they did not want to be part of the process, and we honor that. We --

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:And with that, because I'm being asked that if they opt out of the planning process, it's not simply the planning process; they will not be asked to take on or to participate.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I'm going to ask -- they're opting out. And by the way, we asked them -- we asked the board and the superintendent to negotiate this. And once they opt out, you know -- and by the way, we are establishing a regionalization network. And just so you know, some of this -- the reason you think it's new --

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Yeah, I'm out of time. But thank you for clearing up some of this.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you. You are out of time.

Senator?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Jim Tedisco, ranker in Education.

SENATOR TEDISCO:Thank you.

Commissioner, it's always great to see you here before us, and we appreciate your testimony and coming by to testify.

I'm going to start out with something I know I wanted to say during my presentation -- I'm very limited, I probably would have saved to the end. And that is as ranking member of the Education Committee, and I think I can say representing my conference, this is a very large budget to begin with, I think $8.6 billion in spending. But we never know what's going to happen during the course of this whole budget negotiations.

I can go on record and tell you this. Myself and I believe my conference will never in this year be balancing this budget on the backs -- no matter what comes out in the finality of this budget, on the backs of our local taxpayers, who may have to cut if there are cuts in very important programs or the backs of our kids or our school districts. I want to be on record in saying that.

Having said that, I'm going to ask you a question, probably won't get to the next one, but you know where I'm going. Have you ever seen the movie Casablanca? Yes or no. No problem.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes.

SENATOR TEDISCO:Yes. So you know in that movie there's a police chief, and he knows what's going on over there. And he goes up to Humphrey Bogart: I'm shocked, I'm shocked, I'm shocked that there's gambling in this facility. We know he's not shocked.

I came to the capital this year, I became shocked -- we have an affordability problem in New York State. Did you know that, Commissioner. Rhetorical. You don't have to answer it. Most people over here know it. If I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times since we've been here. We have an affordability problem.

Every time we interact with our constituents, surveys or polls, we ask about transportation, safety, education -- love education. You support it? Yes. Do you want us to fund it? Fund education, put money in it. They want the test scores to be good. They want the graduation rates to go up. It's extremely, extremely important for them.

But my goodness, everybody knows we have an affordability problem in New York State. We've had an affordability problem. Besides what my constituents and others say, in the last census we became number one in outmigration: 101,000 people left the State of New York. Fifty states. One of seven states that lost a Congressperson, lost voices out there. We're number one in Tax Freedom State today. We still have that designation. You know, Commissioner, that's when we actually take a dollar home for the people who work in New York State.

There is an affordability problem, without question. The worst thing is our destiny, possibly, which they suggest at least two or three Congresspeople and representatives will be lost in the 2032 census coming up. That's significant to think about.

But make no mistake, if we're going to move towards affordability -- and you know what? We have to, to keep people in New York State, to keep the great educational system we have -- we're going to have to have spending priorities, spending -- realistic spending priorities. And that is the challenge, I think, for us, for the majorities, for the minority, for the Governor: Spending priorities.

And I've seen a very large budget come out, I've seen $8.6 billion in spending. But I don't want that to fall on the back of a number-one spending priority: Educating the kids in New York State. We cannot let that happen.

But by the same token, I got a feeling she's going to have to be Houdini with the budget she gave us to give those tax monies back. And we believe in tax cuts. We need them. That would be part of the incentive. It ain't a rabbit that has to come out of a hat -- she's got to pull a giraffe out of a hat. Now, that's a big animal. Okay? So that's going to be hard to do.

So my question to you is -- I've got a minute -- she has to be interacting with you and the leaders of -- our other commissioners and everything like that. Has she talked to you about what's going to happen across the board or how you can help with this cost of living, not cutting programs but adjusting how we move those programs forward, how we realign programs, things of that nature?

Because it scares me when all of a sudden affordability problems have been in existence and we're going to solve them overnight. Thirty seconds isn't enough, I know that. Don't hate me.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, Senator, let me start by -- and I know you know this, and this is going to sound -- we're an independent agency. We are not an agency of the Governor.

Now, having said that, we do try -- and I have to tell you, put it point-blank, the commissioners of this state, many of them we work very closely with. So we try to, to your point --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Hold that point.

SENATOR TEDISCO:We could talk forever.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:We had a four-and-a-half-minute question and not 30 seconds -- anyway --

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:And actually, just to point out -- thank you, Cary -- we try to remind legislators you can use all of your minutes asking a question, but the answerer doesn't get extra minutes to answer you. So just the lesson for today.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Before I go on, we've been joined by Assemblymembers Conrad, Hooks, Simone -- I'm sorry, Simon -- and Mitaynes.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:And we've also been joined by Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh on the Republican side.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblymember Chludzinski, five minutes.

ASSEMBLYMEMBER CHLUDZINKSI:Good morning, Commissioner.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

ASSEMBLYMEMBER CHLUDZINKSI:I want to thank you and your staff for being here today with us, and I want to thank you all for the hard work that you do for all our students and families across New York State. I know it's probably not always a thankful job, but we appreciate the work that you all do.

I just have a couple of questions. One is in regards to staffing shortages. We're still hearing concerns about staffing shortages at school districts across the state. Particularly I know in my district I hear there's shortages of -- it's very difficult for them to find science teachers, biology, chemistry.

What is your department doing to address the shortages? And what structural changes are needed to address these shortages?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I'm going to start by saying, as you saw in my intro, we talked about Teach.org. But in addition to that, we have -- under the leadership of Dr. Matteson, we've been doing a great deal of work of taking our requirements for certification of our teachers and creating lots of flexibilities.

And we can give you, just to be very precise, a couple of good examples of that.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:So just a couple of examples. You brought up science. One of the things that the department had done, I think in August of '23, was to put a regulation in effect that allowed -- if you're going to have a second certification for science, you weren't going to need additional 30 credit hours, you could do 18 credit hours.

We've just put forward a regulation to allow that for most of our certification titles. So if a student is going to college or university or a teacher prep institution and would like to have multiple certifications, it's not going to take multiple 30-credit-hour coursework pathways in order to get those certifications. So that's some flexibility we've offered.

We've also tried to deal with some of the certification exam issues that have been a roadblock for many of our teachers, especially coming from out of state, where they may have taken an assessment, a different teacher assessment in their state, and then they have to take the New York State exam. So they've done all they could do in their home state, they're fully certified there, otherwise qualified, that we're finding ways to now -- we're going to -- we put a regulation in place that we're going to analyze those exams and the ones that are comparable, we're going to accept them. And then if they get close to passing ours, if they didn't take an exam, we've also got a multiple-measures approach to get people certified if they have -- come very close to passing the exam, so they're not one after another taking it multiple times.

So in addition to Teach.org, which has been a great success in recruitment and getting people on the pathway to teaching, we in fact have more people in the pipeline on Teachny.org, starting our pathway, than we do in teacher prep institutions right now in New York State.

So it's having the desired effect, and that's only nine months in. Which is why we've emphasized it -- now the third time in this hearing. It's very important to us to keep that product and to work with our partners.

ASSEMBLYMEMBER CHLUDZINKSI:Thank you, sir.

Just to change gears here, on the Governor's Distraction-Free Learning Initiative. I know that was mentioned a little bit earlier. But are you concerned at all that the Governor's Distraction-Free Learning Initiative requires school districts to adopt cellphone prohibition policies rather than allowing districts to make the determination locally?

I know locally, talking to our superintendents, this has basically been an issue that's been solved through their own department policies and procedures, and they've conveyed to me that they more or less have this under wraps at their school districts because it's been around for quite a few years now.

Do you have concerns that the state coming in and adopting their own policies, superseding what the school districts already have, will be problematic?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, I have taken a very strong position on the local control and the fact that many of our superintendents and schools, including -- and again, I don't want to speak for the school board or the Big 5 or some of the individuals that have really taken a similar position.

We believe that this is local control. People have been doing it, to your point, for a while. And I do believe that the Governor's office initially started in one place, and those changes have been adjusted to be at the local control. And knowing that many districts already doing -- have been doing this for a while.

So we are hopeful that that is the final destination.

ASSEMBLYMEMBER CHLUDZINKSI:Thank you, Commissioner.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

And our chair of Libraries, Senator Bynoe, 10 minutes.

SENATOR BYNOE:Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, Commissioner.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

SENATOR BYNOE:So I would like to start out by echoing some earlier sentiments and lending my voice to increasing capital funding to libraries.

Specifically in my district, we have the Uniondale Library that has a rising water table and they're taking on water. They need a roof. They're really in bad shape, and they're not yet able to access that funding to do the work.

And we have other examples throughout the district, and I know many throughout the state.

So in not belaboring the point, I'd like to move on and ask about school libraries and ask specifically about the role of SED in oversight of school libraries, specifically the funding. Right now I believe the amount is $6.26 per pupil, and they haven't had an increase since 2007. And I know that many of the districts do not have full-time librarians in the schools. And this has to be a function of that.

So I'd like to know -- I'd like to hear from you regarding whether there's been any study about increasing that per-pupil cost and what your role is in doing so.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, so let me start by saying it's interesting, outside of New York City they've done a better job with libraries. And the -- but there's been an investment and a push for New York City also to realize the extreme value of this.

So on the issue of the per-pupil investment --

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:The Board of Regents has in fact recommended that those numbers be adjusted for inflation. So relative -- I don't recall right now what the number would be to adjust, but that they be taken -- inflation from the time that that was set in statute and increased to what it would be now.

So yes, the board is supportive of that.

SENATOR BYNOE:Okay. I would love to see those numbers. And once you complete that exercise, I think the whole body can benefit.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We'll share -- we can meet with you and share with you specifically, because we do have the numbers of -- the number of districts that do have, you know, librarians, particularly in the elementary school but all way through. So more than glad to meet with you to go over those.

SENATOR BYNOE:Thank you.

Also, moving on to education -- and I know that many parents would love to have the opportunity and need the opportunity to have alternatives and options in terms of educating their young scholars. And I know charter schools have provided that.

But I am concerned regarding the saturation of charter schools in Senate District 6, and I'm sure it's happening throughout the state in certain areas. In particular, Hempstead School District, which has a total aid of $234 million, is sending roughly $87 million to charter schools.

And the examples -- I can go on and on on that but, you know, there's a real disparate impact to school districts that are sending those large sums of money to charter schools. And, you know, I'd like to know, first, when SED is reviewing these RFP responses for charter schools, whether you're taking into consideration that there's saturation.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes. So I'll start by saying that we have two entities, SUNY and SED. Our charters, in the -- we have the smaller -- actually, you have four, because you have Buffalo and New York City. But primarily the two entities that make the determination in this particular case, SUNY has the largest number of charters. We have 95, I think, is the number that we have. And SUNY has --

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:Two-thirty-eight.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Two hundred -- you're right, 238 is the SUNY number. Ours is 95, and New York City 38 and I think Buffalo two.

So in that determination it's -- there's a struggle because many districts -- you know, many charters will go to SUNY, obviously, rather than -- you know, we have a pretty strict -- and I'm not saying they don't have a strict -- but we have a pretty robust type of process that you have to go through.

Now having said that, there are many times that there's a lot of confusion in the field where they feel that we've -- you know, we have in fact decided that this charter's going to go into that district when in fact it's a SUNY decision.

And with Hempstead --

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:So we have worked, over the past two years, I want to say, with my colleague across the table, Jason, in understanding how we can attempt to find a way. We know that there is a problem with the way that charter schools are funded, essentially. And we do know that Hempstead does have one of the highest amounts of tuition rates that they do pay out to their local charter schools.

And that is not to say that we don't believe in parent choice and support that decision of those parents, but I think it comes down to essentially the way that charter schools are funded within the laws that are currently existing on the books that do create a complication for the way that school districts themselves have to pay out that money.

SENATOR BYNOE:So we know now, right, that there's a problem. Right? And we know that Hempstead in particular has really been hampered by this. But it's actually growing tentacles, and it's making its way throughout the district, insomuch that Uniondale is currently sending 21 million, and they're projected for -- for last year they sent 21 million, and they're projected to send 25 million.

What can SED do to streamline the process, have better oversight in terms of saturation so that -- you know, we know we have these two different entities, but have you done any study, any type of evaluation as to best ways to move forward?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, we've looked at where the saturation -- I mean, a perfect example is District 5. You've got a huge saturation in District 5, and I can tell you a couple of other districts.

We also know that, to Angelique's point, that there's a different rate that's paid, which also creates another layer.

You know, and sometimes people think that it's kind of a one-on-one, you're removing a kid from one place and moving it to another. But when you have a class of, let's say, 19 and you still have to create a class, and you have minus the number of students that have left, right, that is a financial hole that the district is in. So it's not as simple as, you know, sometimes I think the way this structure in the law was designed, it makes it look as if, Oh, well, I'm taking 10 from here and you're left -- no, you still have to have that teacher, you still have to have those resources.

So it's not as if the cost is, you know, necessarily -- because as somebody who's done, both in my middle school and high school, done programming, it is a challenge. And it's also a challenge when you have, you know, fewer dollars to provide the kinds of resources.

So I do think we have to take a look at the whole issue with the charter law from various issues. And that's one of them.

SENATOR BYNOE:And I'd like to work with you on that.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay. Well, look forward to it.

SENATOR BYNOE:I have one other question specific to Hempstead, and it's use of -- SED's placement of a monitor.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Monitor.

SENATOR BYNOE:And I'd like to understand from you whether you believe a monitor should still exist within that district. And if so, why?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Absolutely. Our schools -- and I'll give you a concrete example, and I'm going to turn it to Jason.

For example, when -- and I'm going to go slightly over to a district like Wyandanch. Right? Totally in horrendous deficit, and it's now in a surplus. I think they're 30 million, if I'm not mistaken, right, 30 million in surplus, from a district that was in a horrendous situation. And the financial monitor has been extremely focused and someone that has made a huge difference.

Now, personally I do have to say I like the idea of two monitors, one instructional, one operational that focuses on the fiscal. And in your case you have one monitor. And again, I would submit that in a district like, you know, you're speaking to, we really truly need an instructional as well as fiscal.

SENATOR BYNOE:They've been able to increase their graduation rates, so I'd like to hear more from you on that.

Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:They did, 82 -- I think it's 82 --

SENATOR BYNOE:Eighty-seven percent.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:-- 82 percent.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Ra has stepped away, so I'll go to Assemblyman Conrad, three minutes.

ASSEMBLYMAN CONRAD:Hi, good morning.

I was excited to review the Blue Ribbon Commission's results and implementation for our four-year changeover for our cohorts of students under the new diploma program. Can you review how SED plans to support these school districts across the state that desperately need staff development? Because looking at the budget right now, it looks like we're at $14.3 million eliminated for staff resource centers. And I just don't know how that particularly jibes with this new initiative that we're about to implement here where we're trying to make this new program truly successful and have these pathways.

Do you care to comment on that?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So I'm going to start by saying I'd love to invite you to a meeting to take you through the journey of what we've gone through to get to this place in terms of the task force -- which was made up of, as you know, superintendents, businesspeople and the twelve recommendations that I think Angelique is going to speak to. There's been an incredible journey of several years to get to this point.

We also have a planned pilot that is supporting this work to take a look at this work within several districts.

So there's a tremendous amount of work to answer that question. And more than glad to really have you -- create a roadmap for you and walk you through it.

In the meantime, Angelique?

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:And part of the -- as you have mentioned, we have very intentionally created a runway, a five-year-plus timeline to build in opportunities to provide teachers with the necessary professional learning opportunities that they would need to help improve their instructional practices within the classroom, along with including and expanding resources to provide access to greater opportunities for students. But happy to meet with you offline to take you through that in a more detailed fashion.

ASSEMBLYMAN CONRAD:I appreciate it. It just doesn't make sense to me to eliminate $14.3 million for staff resource centers that I found personally the place where I would learn literacy techniques, as our Chair Carroll mentioned and others. It just seems like a very important piece, today more than ever.

And I'll leave with just one comment. Obviously, being an educator and having a lot of friends that are still in education, the paperwork load that is being placed on special ed teachers -- I get it, they're not just teaching, they're doing much more. They're counseling, they're dealing with addiction, they're dealing with trauma. There's so much being added to the plate of our educators.

What are we doing to eliminate or simplify or just make a load of paperwork that has been inundated -- the comment I keep getting from educators is "I don't feel like I'm teaching anymore. I'm just filling out paperwork."

And I'll leave it at that, if there's any efforts that we can do to alleviate that.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So I will tell you --

ASSEMBLYMAN CONRAD:We'll talk later.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you. We've been joined by Senator Weik.

And Senator Murray, ranker on Libraries, for five.

SENATOR MURRAY:Thank you very much on.

And thank you for being here. I'm over here in the corner. Thank you for being here and for your testimony. I have quite a few questions, but with five minutes I'll start with the first here.

So recently the Trump administration had announced a reversal in policy regarding law enforcement and making arrests or going into locations deemed as sensitive areas -- churches, synagogues, and schools, of course. They reversed that policy, and when doing so, the media spun it as though they're targeting these locations. Now, ICE officials, other officials have come on and said that's not the case, we are not targeting them, we simply need to have access in the event, say, a violent gangbanger is going into a school to get sanctuary from being caught. We don't want that. We don't want them around our kids either.

So in making this change, we've seen school districts now coming out with their statements. And recently, yesterday or the day before, a district in my Senate district, the Pat-Med District, says, Law enforcement can't access school grounds. They will not give them access to their school grounds unless there's a crime being committed currently on the school grounds or they have a warrant.

I'm concerned about the message that's sending. Our police officers, whether it's through COPE, whether it's through community policing, our police, whether it's the PAL -- we have police in Suffolk County that take kids fishing just to get a relationship, to show that we're not the bad guys. And then a statement like this comes out, and it makes it look like they are the bad guys.

I think we've taken -- statements like this are taking steps so far backwards and putting police at such a disadvantage now.

I'd like to know, is there a policy that you are recommending? Do you support this policy? And do you have a blanket policy regarding this issue that you are recommending to school districts?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. And I'm more than glad to make sure you have a copy of. We worked during the holidays -- and this is not a new policy, but to -- with the Governor's office, the AG and our department, to provide guidance to the schools, under what circumstances -- and it was very specific.

Our local police officers, many of them, to your point, work as part of the community and they're known. This is very different when you're going in asking, as you know, for, you know, records, information. No parent would want that information to be provided unless -- and sometimes it's a question of making sure that there is a warrant or there is a subpoena. Whatever it is, these are two places, you know, especially -- I won't speak for churches, but I'll speak for schools. Schools are places where, when parents send their children to school, they want to know that no one other than that principal in that space, and that superintendent, are aware that whether they're being questioned or they're being, you know, taken out or -- that we follow the law in terms of what is acceptable and what is not.

SENATOR MURRAY:So --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So that guidance, we're more than glad to make it available to you. Because we did send it out to all the districts and to all the lawyers in the districts, to all the districts and -- as a matter of fact, we've sent it out several times just to make sure that our schools are not only informed but that they know the protocols that they have to follow.

SENATOR MURRAY:So wouldn't you agree that there needs to be clarification -- on both sides. On both sides. I think the Trump administration needs to come forward and maybe the federal officials need to come forward to identify exactly what they mean when they say they need access to the sensitive areas.

But with that said, when you have districts making blanket statements like this that are being -- I don't even know if "misconstrued" would be the right word. because it's being received by law enforcement as a slap in the face.

And might I remind you that I think most school districts do have SROs in their schools. They're law enforcement. So we can't pick and choose when they're good and when they're not. You know, I wonder what this will also do, a statement like this will do to those SROs and how they're seen now.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Right. I think that, again, the climate that we're currently in is very different, as you know. So your SRO is very much a part of the fabric of that school. You know, we have to be honest and say that I think the media and the information that's out there --

SENATOR MURRAY:Hundred percent agree.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Assembly.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assembly -- you're taking my job.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman Ed Ra, ranker on Ways and Means.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner, good morning. Good to see you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Thank you and your team for always being responsive to us when we have questions and clarifications needed on things.

I just want to talk about a few funding issues -- Foundation Aid, as we know. I think we all expected this to be a big, you know, thing in this year's budget, and we're kind of not making too many changes relative to what we saw in the report. So I want to ask you just about a few of them.

I know in the Regents budget proposal there was a proposal or some talk about Regional Cost Index. I was wondering if you guys have any financial estimate of what it would have cost to implement what was proposed and whether that was the type of thing that we'd have like a large-scale winners and losers, which is something that we've all been concerned with when it comes to updating Foundation Aid.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:That is something we can get back to you on, those details.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Okay.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:It does -- I can say, to the second part of your question, it does drive significant change. So it is important to think about it in the global context of supporting our schools. But with respect to specific details, we can get you more later.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Okay, thank you.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:And then one of the other pieces that -- you know, the Executive Budget doesn't propose any updates to the "successful schools model." And I know that with what's going on within the board, just wondering if you could comment on how much of a priority it is to update that model concerning the new graduation measures that are being discussed by the Board of Regents.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:It's the after-school -- you're talking about the extended day?

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:I'm talking about the "successful schools model" as it pertains to Foundation Aid, especially given -- you know, it relies currently on Regents exams, and with the new graduation measures coming.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:We do think it's important. As we were developing the Regents state aid proposal to support them, we worked with the major education stakeholders --

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Some of my colleagues are having trouble hearing you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Get closer to the mic? Thank you.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Thank you very much. Sorry about that.

As part of developing the state aid proposal, we had numerous conversations with the big education stakeholder groups, and they were telling us in such important language that the expectations for schools in our state have changed significantly since that original study. So it's been -- that "successful schools" as it currently exists is a number that was analyzed years ago, and then inflation has adjusted it.

But if the underlying role of education has changed significantly in our state, it's really important to think about that when you try to measure what we need to support.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:And then on the special education side, I know the Regents proposal wanted to do a CPI adjustment until the new methodology is adopted. Where do we stand with regard to the tuition rate-setting methodology study?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Great question.

DEPUTY CMMR. MEYERS-RUFF:We are currently beginning work on the study, and it will be completed by July 2027. And so the --

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:I'm sorry, 2027, is that what you --

DEPUTY CMMR. MEYERS-RUFF:2027, the study will be completed.

But we're beginning the work now. We're meeting with districts, we're getting information, we've identified a consultant to work with us so that we can get input from stakeholders. But the initial work has begun.

In the meantime, that 3.1 percent CPI that you referenced is important because we need to make sure that on an annual basis that increases are happening while we're also doing the study.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Agreed.

And then last year, on another type of special education school, we did $30 million in capital funding for the 4201 schools. Can you provide any update in terms of that funding and, you know, how much has gone out the door and where it is in the pipeline?

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:So the $30 million, there's been $25 million in awards that have been identified. Our contracts administration group is working to establish that so that those funds can begin to be made available to those awardees.

There is a pot of I think it's $5 million that was reserved to be able to handle emergency capital situations that would arise, and so that continues to be available as outreach is made, you know, under those circumstances. But we're moving forward to be able to move those dollars out to the entities that were awarded those dollars.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Okay, great.

With my last 20 seconds -- this is more of a statement. But, you know, going back to the CPI with the 853s or as it pertains to the 4201s, right, we have these minimum increases we're giving to all our public schools. And so many times these institutions don't benefit from that, so I think it's very important that we keep that front of mind and make sure they're getting increases as well.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Agree.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you very much.

Senator Robert Jackson.

SENATOR JACKSON:So, thank you, co-chairs, for putting together this joint budget hearing.

Commissioner, thank you and your staff on behalf of all of the people in the State of New York with respect to the job that you have.

In fact, you had a legislative breakfast about two weeks ago, and you mentioned that you only have about $20 million. And I saw the need for what you say is really about $40 million to straighten up your beautiful house right across the street, meaning the State Education Building. So I applaud you for saying what you really need.

But also I'm saying what about the poverty counts and Foundation Aid as a result of tens of thousands of students are now in the system that were not there before? That's number one.

And then number two, because my time frame is only two minutes now, is the Foundation Aid formula is an old formula, very old. And Michael Rebell and others are looking to change that totally. And it reminds me of a car that I had, it was an old car, it had 330,000 miles on the car. It was a Volvo wagon. And I needed to take it in for a repair, and the mechanic said, you know, it's time to get another one. So I didn't believe him; I took it to another place to get a second opinion. And they said no. So I had to get a new car.

So same thing with the Foundation Aid. We don't need the old formula. It's not working. It's not really working. So I just ask you about those two questions. And quickly, I want you to know that the situation of inaction on governance in East Ramapo is a major issue, and the kids in that school district, in the public school district, are not getting the opportunity for a sound, basic education which they are guaranteed under the New York State Constitution.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I would say hold on to that car; it may be an antique and very valuable at some point.

But I do believe that we have to get to a new formula. And I have been in conversation with Michael Rebell. And one of our new partners is AIR, and they do some really good research and some good work on this issue.

So I would say one of the things we're doing is as we're having conversations about the -- what I consider to be the journey or the roadmap has to lead us to a new formula, no question about it.

SENATOR JACKSON:The second part?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes, on East Ramapo. East Ramapo, more than glad -- I know that also Senator Mayer has been intimately involved as well in this issue. It is such a complex issue because you've got 10,000 kids on one side, 30,000 kids on the other side -- more than glad to meet with you on this.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:You'll have to follow-up afterwards.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Right. Thank you.

Assemblywoman Buttenschon, for three minutes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN BUTTENSCHON:Good morning, Commissioner and team. Thank you for being here this morning.

Many of my colleagues have asked questions that I had, but I want to shift gears to the Career and Education -- the CTE programs. So I have a few questions; I'll ask them and then give you time to respond.

So first, as we look at many of the contributing factors to a successful program, credentialing is one. And you reflected the expansion that will happen at the community colleges. The first question is, do you have the staffing to ensure that that credentialing can be expedited at the secondary level so that -- as we prep for our community colleges?

Second, what is your office doing different to ensure the teachers' expertise that is going to be needed, again, to prepare for our community colleges -- and I know my colleague talked about staffing, but this is clearly the expertise within the much-needed CTE.

And finally, what is the office doing a little differently to ensure our special -- our children with special needs are inclusive into these great programs?

Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. Yeah. So starting with your question about do we have the staffing, and the answer is no. Everybody on our staff is doing at least seven to 10 jobs as a result of the fact that, you know, our staffing has really pretty much been pretty flat.

The one issue that you raise about we do have conversations with higher ed, both CUNY, SUNY and others, to really try to create that continuum and that link in terms of what are the ways that we can help each other to help our students make those transitions.

In terms of CTE, along with our BOCES --

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Yeah, it's an excellent question about the access to CTE for special education students. And they've always had access, but we found several years ago that the ability to meet their needs, their learning needs while they're in those programs, was lacking a little bit.

And there's been a massive investment of both the department's time to consult with the BOCES and CTE programs to make sure all the accommodations were provided and those students were having success, and that they are getting access to those programs equitably.

And the BOCES have -- I know this because of recently being a district superintendent of a BOCES a couple of years ago, created two new networks, a special ed network and a CTE network that now meet together to ensure that those accommodations are taking place and those students have access to those programs.

So they have just the same skill set available to them to go into workforce development programs after high school.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN BUTTENSCHON:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you very -- excuse me. Okay, sorry. The two chairs are debating which of us has the harder microphone to use.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Mine stays on all the time now.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:I'm sorry, we're up to Senator Weber, for three minutes.

SENATOR WEBER:Thank you, Chair.

Hello, Commissioner and everyone here today.

You know, I wanted to just talk about the Foundation Aid formula. I think there's a lot of -- the recommendations, I think there are a lot of great recommendations that are in that report that will help a lot of school districts in the 38th Senate District. Primarily, East Ramapo School District would certainly benefit from a lot of the recommendations in there.

So I'm encouraged that the Governor has some of those recommendations in this year, and I hope that we can look at the other recommendations as well.

But I want to go back to, you know, obviously the East Ramapo situation. You know, a year ago now we were on Zoom calls and we were on conversations with the monitor where we were told that the district was going to need -- was $20 million short and needed a spin-up, wasn't going to be able to make payroll by July. Right? We had many conversations through the spring. You had worked with then-Assemblyman Zebrowski on a bill to have a fiscal control review board to take over the district because they were obviously mismanaging money to the effect of $20 million.

Lo and behold, we find out over the summer that they -- or late after the summer, that they had a $30 million surplus. Right?

But in between, you know, you had made -- and indicated to me that you had started doing a review and that the district wasn't in as much dire straits. Yet in late July/early August you took the unprecedented steps of, right, directing the school board, after the voters only approved a 1 percent tax increase, to order and direct the school board to implement an additional 4.38 percent tax levy.

Against the voters' will, overriding the voters, basically directing the school board members that if you don't vote for it, I will remove you from the board. Right?

But you knew at that point, or you probably were getting an indication at that point that the district wasn't in a $20 million deficit as we were misled all along throughout the year. And then we find out, as I said, after -- sometime in October or November -- they had a $30 million surplus, a $50 million swing.

Knowing what you know now, do you regret ordering that directive? And second, where do the taxpayers, who are the most -- I think we're the second-highest property tax county in the country. Where do those taxpayers go to get their refunds?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay. No, I do not regret, because for years, 10 years or more, this district has made no commitment to the children of this -- you know, the children of East Ramapo. None. So I don't regret that.

But also, this was very specific to English language learners. And so that was -- you know, that's a misinformation that's kind of lost in this conversation.

In addition to the confusion, we also had, as you know, somebody that -- both people left --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:More than glad -- I think we've had this conversation. More than glad --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Hold the thought.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:-- to clarify some of these issues.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Assembly.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay. Assemblywoman Jackson.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Good, because I was freezing.

Hi, Commissioner.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Hi.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:One of my favorite teachers, she happens to be my stepmom, she works in a middle school in Brooklyn, and she spends about 350 -- so far she's spent about $350 on preparing her classroom. And Teachers Choice we have in the city, they give about 250 back to the teachers for reimbursement.

And I think in other parts of the state they can use a -- they can get a federal tax credit for their supplies.

I'm just wondering about your thoughts -- and it's not in this proposal, but I'm just wondering about your thoughts on a state tax credit for professionals to purchase school supplies. And I say professionals because I'm a former high school social worker, so I have to advocate for them as well. So just talk to me about that.

And then Teacher Resources Centers have been eliminated. They usually do. We usually reinstate them. If we don't reinstate them, what would the impact be?

And a plus-one on East Ramapo.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:The good work that teachers do in their classrooms to prepare their classrooms is so important. And I know from my own children's classrooms the beautiful spaces that they create. It certainly saddens us that teachers are spending their own money on that.

That said, revenue policy makes us a little nervous. So I want to hesitate to answer that question in detail. But we understand your point very carefully, and it's close to our hearts.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Gotcha.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:There was a second part of the question. Commissioner, you want to take that?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:The Teacher Resource Centers.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:The what?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Teacher Resource Centers. They have been eliminated in the budget. We usually reinstate them. But just imagine if we didn't -- what would that impact be?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Okay. Yeah. The teacher resources obviously is something that we are extremely committed to, both from some tangibles as well as some professional development.

And I'm going to ask Angelique to talk about some of the things that we're doing with them.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:So the Teacher Resource Center, which we do work with them directly, knowing and understanding all of the various initiatives that we have going on, talking about implementing culturally responsive, sustaining education, talking about strategies to support some of our struggling learners, in addition to expanding opportunities around instructional best practices with literacy as well as numeracy, will not be able to be provided at the level that it could be if our Teacher Resource Centers are not funded.

As a former teacher center director earlier on in my career, I certainly can speak to the amount of professional development that was provided that is essential to help ensure that teachers are able to help further the knowledge that they have to enhance their skills to support students.

And I'll pass East Ramapo to Jason.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:Yeah, I would just quickly note that the order was very distinct from the structural deficit and the cash-flow issues that were highlighted, to the commissioner's point.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Cleare.

SENATOR CLEARE:Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much. I'm going to try to, like, say this really fast because I want you to answer, if you can.

Because of the oversaturation in District 5 of charters, and in the Harlem portion of District 3, the holes you described earlier are really impacting some of our traditional public schools, and they are being forced to collapse in some cases. There's a number of collocations, disruptions.

I'm particularly concerned about the possibility of some of my very young students that will have to travel further distances to get to a traditional public school. And I just wanted to know if we've factored in the formula, if we've considered those factors in supporting District 5 in that way.

Also, I want to ask, is there any other municipality other than New York City where they are being forced to pay rent for charters? So we're the only ones.

Because those are dollars that I see that could be used and space that could be used to attain smaller class size.

And also in visiting some of my districts, aside from more clarity needed on where ICE can go and what have you, we are already seeing parents not bringing children to school. My districts received many of those families, and I'm just concerned about the impact on the school itself with our parents already refusing to come outside, even.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, the fear is real. I mean, it's not -- to your point.

The saturation issue is one that we've had many conversations with New York City. And I think even with -- I think Buffalo had a similar kind of situation, Rochester somewhat.

We usually try to work with the school districts in terms of, you know, this kind of issue, particularly even for us, when we look at charters that applied for that. But that's not -- because we have different charter entities -- authorizers, thank you.

The issue for us is also that, you know, again -- and I've said this at this meeting before, the biggest concern I have is that particularly when charter schools take children and they don't have services that they need, they recommend that they return to the public setting.

When charters take schools and in some cases children are -- for whatever reason, it is not a good fit, they return. So there's a return policy that is disruptive, and there's also a return policy that I don't understand, you know, if there's -- if there's a willingness to work, then we've got to have a willingness to work with all children and make sure that the same provisions we have to make for special education, everybody should be making and responsible for those provisions.

To the question, your excellent question about -- it's only New York City. That's what's in law. And it's New York City in terms of the --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Pirozzolo.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:Good morning, Commissioner. Thank you for being here today.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:So I'm really not going to comment on your testimony, not because it was good or because it was bad. Just in my opinion, I feel that it's ancient. Right?

Our system seems to be based upon an agrarian society or an agrarian system, and hopefully I'm going to be able to plant the seed with you, and you'll be able to water it, and together we can watch it grow.

I think that there's plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the failures of education -- not trying to say there aren't many, many successes, because there are. But we do a lot of pointing fingers -- you know, is it the teachers, is it the parents, is it you, is it you.

So in my effort to become a better human being, right, I'm going to say that really I now believe that the system is to blame, and we need to make some changes to the system. And one of the things I'd like to suggest is really maybe a pilot school program. I'd like to see us go to a 12-month school year.

Now, I'm not saying that teachers have to spend any more time in a classroom than they already do. I'm not saying that students have to spend more time in a classroom or as far as the required number of days of education. What I would like to see is maybe some sort of an opt-in both by parents or teachers in a pilot school where it's run more like a college. Okay? Because right now I think that the education system is really based around the adults who work in the buildings and not necessarily the students and their families. All right?

I'd like to see that maybe we could possibly incorporate our after-school programs within the school day, maybe even make them part of the curriculum. It might be easier to secure funding for them that way. I mean, I know our schools are open 12 months out of the year anyway, but not necessarily in a formal education setting. And if it were, we would be able to possibly to prevent the drop off in education that we have, you know, once we go into summer school or do things like that or when we come back in September.

So I think that there could be benefits, you know, from that. And I think it's something that we kind of need to explore. Because as I said, you know, this is my third Education hearing, and other than the different topics of the day, every part of the conversation and everything that everyone suggests and talks about is exactly the same. And I feel that, you know, we have certainly been, in my opinion, failing some of our students, our most neediest students, for generations.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I just want to say that, to your point, I was -- and I'm going back to 1993, '94, '95, '96, in that space. I was the principal of a middle school and -- and Senator Jackson was my board president. Open six days a week -- Saturday. Open till 10 p.m. every night. That school was the first Community School, 218. So as innovative as I know you're stating and it sounded, that was open all year round, and exactly to this -- Children's Aid Society was our partner. So this has been tried and done.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you. Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:Well, I meant a little bit more than a Community School, but thank you very much. I appreciate everyone being here today.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Senator Weik.

SENATOR WEIK:Thank you.

Good morning, Commissioner.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

SENATOR WEIK:Thank you for being here today.

I know our schools are facing so many challenges with education and so many multiple changes financially. One of the big -- lots of my questions have already been asked, but one of the other issues that hasn't been touched on yet is the mascot issue.

I have five schools in my district, and just to the west of me I know Senator Rhoads has three schools that are being affected, to the tune of millions of dollars.

With all of the educational and the necessary changes that are happening in our schools, this is really a noneducational, kind of non-necessary burden that we're putting on our school districts. In the summer of 2023 I had a meeting where we had all eight schools plus three leaders from our local Indigenous tribes. We had reached out to you and invited you; we got no response from you or any representative attending the meeting.

And the school districts are really looking to work with the regulation, try to find out what are the rules, and they've really been hitting a dead end.

So my question to you is, what guidance do you plan on providing or what assistance or extensions are you looking to reach out to those schools who are really struggling at this time with all of the rest of the -- you know, the electric bus mandate, the changes in Foundation Aid, the changes in our educational system. So what do you plan on doing to reach out and make sure that you're communicating with these school districts?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:So there is still time, obviously, to have our districts move into this space. There's been constant communication. We've had an Indigenous office that has got a committee that's given us a lot of feedback. And we've had a person who's a point person. And we certainly want to continue to communicate, to hear more information on what the roadblocks are.

I think the commissioner intends to be as flexible as she possibly can be within the confines of what we've heard and the Board of Regents regulation that has been adopted. And --

SENATOR WEIK:Okay, so at this point the school districts are not getting any communication back from anyone. So they've been reaching out to the group that no one knows who they are and saying, okay, well, our mascot was never founded on the premise of being Indigenous or -- they have different arguments. And they can't seem to get any response from anyone. So when you say that they're responding back to them, I have to disagree with that. I've got five school districts that are telling me they're not getting any response at all.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So if you can send us information, because I'm going to tell you, we meet with the districts, we meet -- we only have four districts that have -- you know, are not in the process of having responded to this issue, number one.

We meet with the Nations. We've had guidance out there. We've had conversations. So to be quite honest with you, this has been an ongoing conversation with our districts. They reach to us through --

(Overtalk.)

SENATOR WEIK:If there was good communication, there probably wouldn't be a lawsuit. And there is a lawsuit pending with a lot of my districts.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, the lawsuit is four districts.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank -- thank you.

Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Good morning. Thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony and for your team being here.

As you know, any child with an IESP that needs services has the right to get them in New York. In the event that the district cannot provide such services, the parent can make the request that the district approve for a private provider to provide these services. If the district says no, a parent can get a fair hearing, as is their right.

However, this past summer the New York State Board of Regents made an amendment to the rule that appeared to eliminate the right to a due process hearing with districts entirely when it came to obtaining special education services. Meaning parents, specifically in my community, cannot appeal a no decision by the district.

Thankfully a judge issued a temporary restraining order, but this case is still pending in court.

My question is, how can taking away the right to a due process hearing help children, especially in our non-public schools where the districts cannot provide these services? How is denying a child these services helpful?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So the actual action that we took was that if you look at the backlog, for many, many -- you know, it's information that we're more than glad to share. We've had to add OATH hearing officers because of the fact that in many cases -- and I know the AG's involved with this -- we've had some amazing, unbelievable amounts of corruption, and we've had an unbelievable amount of misuse and abuse of some of these -- you know, where we've had hearings where the parents haven't shown up and hearings where the amount of dollars that are being requested are -- you know, you're talking about for -- you know.

So let me just finish with more than glad to walk you through, because this is a complex situation and we've been working very, very closely with New York City to try to resolve the issues at the local level with the parents, and to make sure that things don't automatically -- and some of these agencies are the ones that are moving forward -- come to a due process proceeding where some of it can be locally resolved.

And so the response the district took, along with the department, was in order to find solutions to try to get at these issues, rather than looking for -- if you're looking for $500 an hour when in fact -- those are taxpayers' dollars.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:With all due respect --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So -- yeah, so --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:So on the umbrella of corruption, we deny. And a parent is paying four times a week for services for their child because we want -- there's corruption over here. But there is not a solution, because it's coming out of pocket. And if you have several children, that's expensive.

So if a parent's going to choose -- we could all use the example of eggs. How do I buy eggs and pay for services at $85 an hour. So that's not a solution.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:No, no, that -- $85 is not the case. So --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:But I'm saying that's what they -- if they have to find a private provider.

(Overtalk.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank -- thank you --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:So we're taking the money out of their pockets.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Assemblywoman.

Senate?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We'll -- we'll share with you what the solutions --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:I need solutions.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Brisport.

SENATOR BRISPORT:{Mic issues.} Thank you -- oh, wow, okay. Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Commissioner and to the team. I know it's no easy feat to be going two hours straight and then some, so I appreciate your time.

I wanted to start by just echoing some of the concerns from some of my colleagues, Senator Cleare and Senator Bynoe, about the proliferation of charter schools in certain districts.

I have School District 16 in my district, which is now approaching a 50-50 split for every one child enrolled in public school, there's one child enrolled in a charter school. So I do just echo their concerns and hope there can be more work done around geographic understanding of where they are requesting these charters and where they are setting up.

But I do have a question about part of your written testimony, Commissioner. You say that siloing childcare from prekindergarten is a problem that "will ultimately harm children and hinder our ability to provide them with the best possible start in life."

I am very curious to hear more about that. Could you say a little bit more about that?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:So ultimately through universal pre-K funding, whether it is through a state -- the statewide funding stream or whether it is through the universal pre-K funding stream, we are limited in nature in regards to some of the monitoring and oversight. And that really is, again, entrenched in the laws, 3602-E and 3602-EE, understanding that the funding streams are governed very differently, which does create some constraints on our part.

However, I also would be remiss if I did not admit that for childcare settings, the State Education Department does not have jurisdiction and oversight with that. That is overseen by OCFS. And we do work very closely with OCFS. We've actually spent the past year creating a committee where we bring folks from the school side and our childhood settings together to talk about some of the -- maybe some of the inconsistencies we see as far as what's happening educationally, how we can better support our community-based organizations in providing education and support for students.

So ultimately we do our -- both settings are overseen by two separate agencies, but we do attempt to work together to try to support students. Because at the end of the day, it is all about the children.

SENATOR BRISPORT:Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Assembly.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Cruz.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:There we go. Thank you. Good to see you again, Commissioner. I want to thank you publicly for all your help and your team's help in making sure we got Clean Slate right.

Putting aside the fact that unfettered access to schools by law enforcement is likely a violation of FERPA, which is federal law, the humane thing to do is to ensure that our kids can go to school without the fear of being picked up by ICE. Extreme examples of law enforcement looking for gangbangers is how folks look to sugar-coat this whole situation. But the reality is that enforcement is going to look like undocumented kids being picked up if the DACA program ends, formerly DACA-documented teachers or volunteers being picked up at the schools.

And I know this because I was one of those kids who went to school undocumented in the '90s when we didn't have the sensitive locations memo. And now that it's gone, you mentioned that you are providing schools with guidance. Is it correct to assume that there is nothing in the law that makes it extremely clear that immigration civil enforcement should not be happening in schools?

And the second question, as a colleague mentioned earlier, there is a staffing shortage when it comes to teachers. The department provides multiple licenses to many of these industries that right now don't have workers, including teachers and including nurses. Thousands of those licenses are currently held by DACA New Yorkers. Over the years there's been an attempt to end the DACA program. If the program in fact ends, is the Department of Education ready to protect that data, ready to protect the licenses of these students -- I mean, teachers, nurses, et cetera?

And if it is not, would you be willing to consider legislation around this? I happen to have a bill around this, and I'd love to talk to your team about it.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, we should talk about it. But definitely, yes, we are committed to the protection, to your point.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:And on the first question, there is no current law that actually ensures that civil immigration law is not being enforced in schools, only guidance, is what you're saying?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, so -- so we have worked with, in our guidance, which I'm sure you saw --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Yes.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:-- with the AG's office, all of our counsel, all our general counsel, along with the AG, along with the Governor's, worked on those guidance.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:So the answer is yes, only guidance, no state law.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes. Yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Senator Tom O'Mara, ranker, five minutes.

SENATOR O'MARA:Good morning. Thank you all for being with us today.

I have, on behalf of our newest Senator on our side of the aisle, Senator Chan, from New York City, who also wishes to reiterate Senator Liu's Happy Lunar New Year to everybody. And the first day of no school on Lunar New Year, and you're all here. Thank you very much.

(Laughter.)

SENATOR O'MARA:We appreciate that.

But Senator Chan has a question. He's unable to be here today. Senator Chan has been an elected parent representative in New York City schools since his daughters were in kindergarten. Senator Chan is deeply familiar with the diverse needs of individual school communities. Many schools do not experience significant cellphone-related challenges, and in some cases parents may not support a blanket cellphone ban.

Senator Chan strong advocates for empowering school leadership teams comprised of parents, teachers and administrators to develop tailored cellphone policies that best address the unique needs and circumstances of their respective schools.

Can you address Senator Chan's concerns with regard to this blanket policy?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. I did, Senator, address the fact that we totally, as a department, believe in the local control. And we believe in the fact that individual districts have been doing a great job in addressing these issues.

We do also believe that the opportunities for districts to engage with parents and with community members, students and so forth to ensure that there is a policy and there's a plan in that school and in that district, is extremely important. So there's agreement there.

SENATOR O'MARA:Thank you for that.

Now, a question from myself. And while we certainly appreciate the 2 percent floor for the districts, the wide majority of the districts, school districts in my Senate district are at 2 percent. Given inflation in the country and, more importantly, in the New York region, Northeast region, inflation still exceeds 4 percent of CPI.

How is 2 percent adequate for these districts to keep up with these inflationary pressures?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:I'd like to start by saying that the board and the staff at the department have expressed strong concerns around the state that every student have the opportunity to prepare for college and career. And the aid formulas and the aid that's provided from the state should support that.

So 2 percent is less than 4 percent, so that is a challenge.

SENATOR O'MARA:I think it's something we should be looking at as a Legislature, to the importance of education for every student in this state to at least keep up with inflation for the costs of operating our schools.

Can you tell us how -- given this 2 percent floor, on the save harmless issue that was such a big discussion point last year, where are we on save harmless? Is that what's playing into this 2 percent floor? Or do they interact at all?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:There are more districts on save harmless this year than there were last year. So the 2 percent applies to more districts around the state.

I think my -- I'm going to defer to my colleague Jeff Matteson, because our response to the save harmless concerns last year was a lot of that regionalization work, and perhaps Jeff can talk about that.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:I think part of the issue here is, to your point, when you try to shoehorn some modifications of the Foundation Aid into what the old law would have generated anyway, there were some compromises made. If you're going to try to stay at 1.7 and you want to change some things that make it more equitable from the recommendations of the Rockefeller Institute, something has to give. And so instead of a 3 percent floor, you have a 2 percent floor.

We're fortunate because I think the reaction from last year on the hold-harmless issue, that they announced early that they were not going to start eating into that. We were very concerned about that, obviously. And even in the report they said there should be a three-to-five-year drawdown.

But really what we need is we need to study this issue about how much it actually costs to educate a kid from each segment of the state so that we can meet your goal of educating --

SENATOR O'MARA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you for your response.

Assemblywoman Torres is next, but I will pause until the commissioner returns.

And she's returning. Are we good?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We're good.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN TORRES:Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner.

Many of my questions have been posed, but I have some concerns about the Governor's budget and the decreases in particular and the impact on your work.

First, on Summer School of the Arts and arts education in general, I represent a high-need economically challenged district where these components of education are not thoroughly provided at all, in the South Bronx. So I'm interested to know particularly the decreases in the Summer School for the Arts and arts education, as well as the decrease in funding for financial literacy.

Look, we know that in high-need districts we don't have access, exposure to financial literacy. And then when you get to college, if you get to college, you get a credit card application right away. So these are the types of things that I truly care about, and I'd like to know more information about the funding, the decreases and the impact that it's going to have on your work.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So -- go ahead, and then I will --

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:We were disappointed to see the reduction in funding that was offered for the School for the Arts.

And, you know, that work that we've been doing there supports the in-person programs, but it's also been supporting programs so that students who are at their homes can participate in summer arts programming, which is intended to provide students in districts like yours the opportunity to do that.

So that was a disappointment, and we certainly hope that that will be addressed in the enacted budget.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And with the financial literacy, we did get $400,000 that we are using and using well, so I'm going to turn it to Angelique.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:And one of the -- one recommendation that came out of the grad measures recommendation was to require instruction in financial literacy beyond what is already happening and our participation in government and economics required courses.

But to your point, for children to understand the impacts of making very sound financial decisions and how it will help to support them through their life, we are, as part of our plan to make some adjustments to high school graduation requirements, are looking to require financial literacy across -- I want to say beginning the school year of '26-'27.

We are looking forward to working with some partners in the field, including our state comptroller's office, to help build out not just resources for school districts to follow, but also giving folks the flexibility to implement it in a way that works within the context of their community.

So right now we currently have schools that will offer an entire course in personal finance and financial literacy. And then you have others where it is integrated across in different courses. So leaving that flexible, requiring it for '26-'27, we believe will get to the recommendation made by the Blue Ribbon Commission about requiring financial literacy for all students.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And it was the number-one issue recommended by the students during the Blue Ribbon.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Borrello.

SENATOR BORRELLO:Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

The number-one concern by far when I speak with school districts and administrators across my district is the electric school bus mandate. It is creating a lot of concern and consternation.

Right now this program, this mandate is woefully underfunded, to the tune of multiple billions of dollars. Some school districts are looking at multi-million-dollar changes to electric infrastructure. So right now we're looking at being forced -- because we also have votes that are going down, right? You have voters that are in districts that have voted down the purchase of these electric school buses, even when they've gone to really good measures to try to educate them on these buses.

So my first question is, what is going to happen to those school districts? Will there be punishment if they're not able to execute and meet these mandates?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Jason?

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:You want to start, Christina?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:We share your concern about the financial impact of this. You know, as the State Education Department we're not the lead in implementing that, but we have been trying to provide as much support as we can to districts. And we're hearing the same thing as you are. So no argument there, but --

SENATOR BORRELLO:I would like, I guess, some really -- you know, some vocal opposition from you all because you see what's -- because now they're going to have to start choosing between providing critical educational services, including meals for our kids, you know, healthcare, you know, mental health support, so that they can meet this ridiculous boondoggle mandate.

I mean, we're going to have to lay off teachers. We're going to have to do things that have nothing to do with education to meet what is a virtue-signaling mandate. So I would like to see at least this being expressed.

In the dollars and cents of it, by the way, you have the ability to lay out very clearly what it's really going to cost. You know, just the cost of the difference between a gas school bus and an electric school bus across the state is about $8 billion. Not to mention multiple billions in infrastructure that's needed. And we don't know these things are safe and reliable.

Why not push for a pilot program?

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:So, Senator, just to your point, so earlier this school year, I believe in late fall the department issued a report based on information that we had done collecting from the field broadly about their implementation that's either currently underway or plans for moving forward.

We know, to your point, there's only right now in the state I think it's 54 districts who indicated to us, out of about 600 that responded to the survey, that they have zero-emission buses that are in their fleet and out operating by the end of the current school year.

That number is anticipated to grow over the next couple of years, but I think one of the big areas of concern that we've heard from folks in particular is just having a capture of those costs and what the impact will be. The need for studies, both individual districts as well as looking at things from a regional perspective through the work that some of our --

SENATOR BORRELLO:So you support doing a study, rural, urban, suburban.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:A study is critical, and being able to provide support for those studies to be done is going to be essential.

SENATOR BORRELLO:Thank you. I'm glad to hear you say that. Thank you very much.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, and we've made that available.

SENATOR BORRELLO:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Mitaynes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Thank you.

Good morning. I'm State Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes, and I represent the 51st Assembly District -- that's South Brooklyn along the waterfront.

I want to talk to you about special education programs, particularly the non-public schools and the 4410 problems that are facing a significant staffing shortage. How do you plan to support these schools in recruiting and retaining qualified educators and staff to ensure that students with disabilities receive high-quality services?

DEPUTY CMMR. MEYERS-RUFF:Thank you. We agree that there needs to be more staffing. One of the real challenges is getting us to parity and making sure that the schools have the funding that they need. And that's an issue that we've been for several years advocating for: Additional parity so that the schools have the funding they need to maintain the staff that they need for the students.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And just so you know, we've also, in our department this year, we've made a change for the purpose of continuum. We have P-12, you know, our special education along with ACCES-VR, so that there is a continuation, a continuum, and it's all under Ceylane. So we've put it all in one place so that we don't have those breaks in between -- the whole focus for us is also not just the staffing, the resources, but professional development and the support that both our public as well as non-publics need.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Excuse me. We've been joined by Senator Stec, three minutes.

SENATOR STEC:Hi. Good morning. It's very efficient of me.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Good morning.

SENATOR STEC:I apologize for my delayed arrival here today; I had something in the district, so I missed some of the questioning. So I'll be very brief.

I wanted to follow up, though, on Senator Borrello's discussion on electric vehicles, electric bus mandate.

You're familiar with my district. It's one of the largest Senate districts in the state -- in the North Country -- because it's very rural. And I've got schools that have complained, they said, look, we can't turn around a bus and charge it. They need multiple buses because they can't have the same bus running out and doing multiple runs.

I'm not going to bore you all with my thoughts on electric vehicles, but clearly there's a range issue and clearly it varies geographically in the state based on ruralness and based on the weather.

But Governor Hochul was very quick last year to hit the pause button on her own for congestion pricing. Would you encourage Governor Hochul that maybe now is a good time to hit the pause button on the electric bus mandate before we get too far down this path and spend a lot of money? I mean, we literally are putting the cart before the horse. And, you know, I mean it's one thing for me to say it, but if you're hearing it from the schools as I am -- and I suspect you are -- she needs to hear it from you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, and I think you were not here when we gave the example of the data that we've been collecting with the 54 school districts out of the, you know, close to 700. So we are hoping that as we're doing this study and the -- obviously, as we're getting the information, that we can all come together and take a look at this. And you know that part of our journey has been to go and specifically speak to our communities in these kinds of situations. We've also been to the rural school districts, where you know that that is the one hot topic that has come up constantly.

So I think that there's enough conversations around this and, you know, giving voice to this issue that I do think collectively it is a moment to really take stock on this issue.

SENATOR STEC:I appreciate that. Again, I mean, I pointed out to the congestion pricing pause just for my colleagues and for the Governor's office if they're listening -- I assume they are. She has tools available to hit the pause button in that regard.

And again, this is a population of people, the school superintendents -- these are not right-wingers, these are people that want to -- you know, they're believers in the mission, whereas maybe we're not all unanimous in that. But I think that they as a group are, and they're the ones that are saying, Look, this is not practical for us. Perhaps a pilot program in an area where it makes the most sense. In the meantime, you let technology march forward for a few years, we learn from those things in other areas where range and climate isn't as big an issue as it is in the North Country.

That's my time, but I -- and I want to thank you, though, Commissioner, on a personal level for some of the work that you've done for me and some of my projects and issues within my district. Thank you very much.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:You're welcome.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

We've been joined by Assemblywoman Rozic.

Our next questioner is Assemblywoman Simon.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony. As usual, there's not enough time. But I wanted to, just if I could, support Assemblymember Pheffer Amato with this IESP thing, because the real danger is that -- in fact, I know New York City is not invested in paying enough for independent hearing officers. They take forever to repay people who are entitled to reimbursement. That creates, then, this colossal mess that I'm not sure is really addressed by the approach that was taken.

Secondarily, I also want to support Assemblymember Carroll's comments about the dyslexia task force recommendations -- which, as you know, are very much needed -- to have in-house expertise. And that's accessible to those in K-12 as well as, as you know, higher ed.

This is my question for you, whether it would -- how much it might cost to hire a couple of people with expertise in the research in science of reading as well as the delivery, so the person who's actually skilled in the instruction, using structured literacy.

And then connected to that, we talked about libraries and the importance of school libraries, and decodable texts, which actually can get kids hooked on learning, particular those kids with dyslexia, but not exclusively.

Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So we're more than glad to go back because we're so excited about your idea of having residencies, you know, individuals who have this kind of expertise. Clearly we have been spending resources to bring in experts to clearly work with us, you know, like Dr. Lesaux, who did look at our standards work but also has done a great deal of work.

But to your point, having internal individuals who are part of the fabric every single day is a different conversation, and we will put together what I would call a reasonable plan and share it with you and also Assemblyman Carroll as well.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:Thank you. I think it's critical to have a dollar amount attached to that, and what that might be. Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay, Assemblyman Maher.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Thank you very much.

Let me be the first one to say good afternoon, Commissioner Rosa. Thank you all for being here.

So looking at your testimony, there are a lot of issues and there are a lot of funding requests, and they total over $200 million. And all of them are followed by "was not part of the Governor's executive proposal."

So why is there such a disconnect between the New York State Education Department and the Governor's office?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Well, again, as an independent agency, we are -- we are your department. You know, when we think about the legislators, right, the reality is that being an independent agency we depend on some funding from the Governor, but we're not one of her agencies. I've often used the term, you know, to the Governor that I'm the stepchild -- but I'm a good stepchild.

(Laughter.)

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So we do get some funding, and we're always, you know, grateful to negotiate and have those conversations. But we also lean on our legislators for your support. And you're the ones that really in many ways, you know, listen to these testimonies, listen to the initiatives that are in your communities that are important, that help us to obviously get the kinds of resources to do our work.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:I can appreciate that. And as someone who's a father -- I have a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old that are just about to get into prekindergarten -- I want to focus on some of your comments. It says "This Executive Budget proposal lacks any additional funding to improve or expand our pre-K system, and this disparity in funding creates an unsustainable system for providers and undermines the quality of early learning experiences for our youngest children."

To me, that speaks as a real issue in terms of the Governor's lack of investment into our youngest children at the most important time in their education. So can you speak as to why that conversation hasn't taken place where you're met a little bit further in the middle?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. Well, the conversations do take place. I think, you know, we truly believe, in our department, in foundational -- building a strong house through the foundation. But again, we have, you know, our zero-to-three, we have a separate agency, you know, that deals with this, which is her agency.

So what ends up happening is we try to collaborate, we try to share resources, we try to be good partners. But at the end of the day --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Just real quick, because I have about 18 more seconds. And I'll get to you sidebar with this because we won't have time. But I do want to bring up that there was a study that was done last year, a feasibility study on consolidating the various universal prekindergarten. I'd love to chat with your team about what impacts and low-hanging fruit might exist as part of that study.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yes. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you very much.

Assemblyman Otis.

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:Thank you, Commissioner and team, for all your good work.

I have two topics. So I'm going to be quick in asking questions here, have some time.

Number one, like to hear where we are on school districts adopting science and engineering education at lower grades. And the second topic is what SED is hearing from school districts about cybersecurity breaches when they go to you to help. There are other state agencies involved. Certainly concerned about the protection of student and staff records and information in that.

And so those are my two topics. Giving you most of my time back to answer them. Thank you.

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:As far as the science is concerned, one of the things that the field was anxious to get was the results of our most recent elementary science examination. There was a line with the new standards that gave us great information about what areas of the state are really -- have really good alignment in instruction toward science and those that did not.

And so great conversations came as a result of those, good analysis on how folks did on certain aspects of that particular assessment. And we're anticipating a great leap forward, so to say, when it comes to the science, because we know people took that seriously and want to see that improvement this year as far as the science is concerned.

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:It's so important to get that earlier, and I know that's part of your curriculum.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And it's inquiry and exploration for many students. And the science allows the students to do what we call applied learning, because they're actually taking the information and actually demonstrating what they know.

So that's -- and I think with the cyber --

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Sorry. You know, we have an office that deals directly with those -- when it's national, when it's in a local school district, when it happens at the state -- that immediately responds.

The most recent one with the PowerSchool piece, we were right on it. We both got our counsel's office involved, to ensure there was protection of PII, but also other offices involved to make sure that all of our school districts that had PowerSchool had the information they need, and that PowerSchool is communicating with them on what was exposed and what they're offering as compensation to ensure student information is protected going forward.

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:It's an important topic, and especially for smaller school districts; they're in a sense more exposed because they maybe have not focused on prevention as much as a larger district who's ahead in the game.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:And if I could just introduce, within our chief privacy office we have released guidance, districts know they can reach out to us directly when they have concerns, through -- we'll follow up with you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:Thank you very much. Thank you always for your good work.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN WALSH:Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Commissioner, the Public Health Law imposes the responsibility of enforcing the state's immunization program on school principals who must ensure that all students are properly immunized in order to attend school. Not only has the program become increasingly complex and time-consuming for school administrators, but school principals face a personal fine of up to $2,000 for every non-immunized student attending school.

While the nursing shortage is adversely affecting all schools, the deficiency of nurses to do this work is especially extreme in our religious and independent schools. Although we provide modest funding to enable you to reimburse non-public schools located in Buffalo, Rochester and New York City for their expenses, we amended the law about 10 years ago to require you to reimburse all non-public schools across the state for their time and effort in complying with this public health mandate.

If I'm not mistaken, the department has yet to tell us how much funding the department needs to cover the expenses for those schools located outside these three cities. Can you tell us what has been taking so long and when we can expect a cost estimate from you?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:I'll say that we noted that the Executive Budget did not have that funding to support the religious and independent school immunizations in it. So that's the first piece I'd like to speak to.

The second half with respect to the cost, we've been operating within the limitations of the appropriation. So our formulas when we are -- with those mandate-services pieces take the costs that are reported and then reflect them out. But with this, we're constrained by that appropriation.

So we have not done that study. We're willing to look at it, but the funding hasn't been there for that.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN WALSH:Thank you very much. I do have one -- I'm surprised that I have a minute left to go, so it's going to be more of an awareness sort of a question for you, Commissioner.

The Early Intervention Hub, the EI Hub launched in October of 2024 using a $53 million one-bid contract with PCG, continues to have significant problems that I and many of my colleagues have been hearing about in our districts, resulting in nonpayment or severely delayed payment to Early Intervention providers and the cancellation of beneficial EI programming that they are doing.

Our concern is that this may in turn have a ripple effect on K-12 education, as more students entering kindergarten will not have received all of the intervention services that they could have. I don't know if you would have any comment on that.

DEPUTY CMMR. MEYERS-RUFF:What I can say quickly in 10 seconds is that we are meeting and working with the Early Intervention Program to have more collaboration and provide support so that students can transition.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN WALSH:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Sorry. We've been joined by Senator Leroy Comrie with a question.

SENATOR COMRIE:Thank you.

Good afternoon, Commissioner. I was at another hearing on another meeting.

I have two questions; I'll be brief.

As you know, I've been working to try to do a financial bill to teach young people how to become financially aware, and putting it in the schools. And we've been stymied for the last three years trying to get a financial literacy bill done. Can you let us know what the state is ready to do --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Senator, I can't hear you, I'm sorry.

SENATOR COMRIE:Sorry. I've been trying to get a financial literacy bill passed in the state for the last three years. We've been getting stymied at every level. Can you let us know what the State Ed Department is ready to do to try to ensure financial literacy? I have too many young people that are going to college and winding up in thousands of dollars of debt because they'd never had any financial literacy training in the schools.

Can you let us know what's going to be done with that? Can we get that done? I have many groups, nonprofit groups with proven curriculum that's willing to come in and teach the course. Banks, from Citibank to Chase, every national bank is interested in coming in to teach the course to relieve the burden. We wanted to spread it from the ninth grade to the 12th grade so it wouldn't impose on the curriculum. We need to get this done.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:So thank you for that. And I did share a little bit earlier that as part of the NY Inspires plan, which comes through the Blue Ribbon Commission grad measures work, that we do intend to require instruction in financial literacy for all students, beginning with the 2026-2027 school year.

We will release some information and guidance for districts that outline the topics and things that need to be addressed in those when that instruction takes place. However, we will allow it to be flexible so that way it can be either a stand-alone course as part of their high school experience, or built in through their normal classes, whether it begins down in kindergarten all the way up through middle school.

As far as individual vendors or companies that would like to work with schools, that decision is made at the local school level because local boards of education make the decision about who would be coming in to help provide that information and instruction to their students. But we do fully intend to support the Blue Ribbon Commission recommendation and will make it a requirement in the coming years, so.

SENATOR COMRIE:Does the commission recommend outside vendors, or are they coming up with their own curriculum?

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:I would not -- we typically do not endorse a particular vendor.

What I will say is that any vendor that a district picks would be their own choice. All we will look for is that it is aligned to fully uplift the topics and the things that we will say are required as part of that work aligned with our New York State standards.

SENATOR COMRIE:Okay, I have a second question regarding the --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you very much, Senator.

Now I'm going to call on myself for a couple of questions. Commissioner, welcome again.

Several school districts throughout the state are hard-pressed for cash, and many of those districts have something called prior claims. And this prior claims add up to tens of millions of dollars, and there never seems to be any effort to repay these districts that actually used -- whether their reserves or whatever, to pay for it. And the state's supposed to reimburse them, and then the state wants to spread it out over 20 years or whatever, and it's not really helpful.

Can you please just tell me why we do this? Why don't we just make these school districts whole and move on?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:You are correct that it is a substantial amount of money. And what has happened in the last several years has been that there has not been an appropriation provided in order for us to start to repay those claims. Should that --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:When you advise the Governor to do her budget you're advising her to do an appropriation, aren't you? Couldn't you have her appropriate X million dollars to school districts that we owe money to?

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Thank you for that suggestion. That was not in the Board of Regents proposal this year, but it has in fact been identified as a priority of the board in years past. So we recognize that concern.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, but it is a concern that we've spoken to at this table. We continue to have separate conversations in saying that if we don't have the money, it is -- you know, the queue is way over --

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:Hundreds of millions at this point.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. Way overdue.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:All right. Well, we do have the money. I mean, we're going to increase school aid by $1.7 billion. There is money there. It's not that we're broke.

And I just think that these are dollars that school districts expended that they may need now and they're not getting, especially some districts that are limited to, say, a 2 percent increase or whatever. Just a thought.

My second question --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. But I think this is one we can do -- you know, we can also have the Legislature also make, you know. I mean, we know that we need the funding in order to pay. So I think collectively we should advocate for this.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Well, I've made a suggestion that funds that the Attorney General gets in some of their lawsuits, those monies be directed -- instead of going into the General Fund, going to pay off school districts that we owe money to. And if you would back me up on that, I would appreciate it.

My second question is exactly how a charter school tuition is calculated.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:There is a formula in statute that essentially establishes an expense per pupil in the district. It takes out certain pieces of the expenditures -- facilities, for instance -- but establishes an approved operating expense per pupil. And then that is the tuition that when the pupil is served in a charter school, the district needs to send to that.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:That's what I figured it was. Now, here's the problem with that as I see it. I know everyone will deny it, but charter schools do cherry pick. And it was mentioned earlier as part of someone's testimony that students are sent back to the district.

When a hard-to-teach student, be he or she physically handicapped or mentally -- whatever, they send them back. Those are the more expensive students to teach. And what you find or what I see happening is they're taking the easy-to-teach students, sending the hard-to-teach students back to the school districts, which increases the cost per student in that district, which is then calculated to give tuition to the charter school.

So the more students the charter schools send back -- and when they send them back they don't send back the tuition that they received from the district. They keep that tuition, which I think is wrong also. But it's making it more expensive for the school district to educate those children. Then we -- the state uses that more expensive cost to give the charter school more money. So the more kids they send back, the more money they make.

And there's a problem there. And I think when you're -- I know you had mentioned earlier that you're looking into how the tuitions are calculated. I think that should be taken into effect. If they're going to be using that formula we're using now, it's wrong. What they should do is do a comparison of what the school district is spending to teach the easy-to-teach students and then take a percentage of that and send that to the charter schools. And you'll see a big change in how charter schools operate.

And my third is actually a follow-up on Senator Jackson's question regarding Ramapo. You were cut off. Could you continue that, please?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So I'm going to ask Jason to pick it up because I think there was some misunderstanding of the issue of the English language learners, which is what my -- what I imposed was based on a very specific reason, and we have shared that information, so.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:Thank you, Commissioner.

So really the issue in East Ramapo, to the commissioner's point, so the order with the additional tax levy funding that was generated was a specific intervention to address, right, a systematic and sustained lack of funding to support English language learner students in the district. Right?

I think if you looked at district demographics they would tell you that somewhere right now around 65 percent of the entire public school population in that district is recognized as English language learners. Right? And so the additional tax levy increase was specifically intended to address the lack of services that are mandated both by law and regulation to students as English language learners in that district.

The order was not designed in order to address the structural budgetary issues that have been identified by the district and the monitor, nor was it identified to address what had been communicated at the time as a cash-flow issue that was going to hit the district as early as July of 2024 and to manifest again this coming spring.

So I think that's a really important distinction here about addressing a longstanding issue from the past and changing the trajectory of a district going forward in order to be able to provide an appropriate education to all of their students, versus some structural issues that had been identified through other issues.

I would also just point out here that the budget surplus in East Ramapo from last year, about half of that surplus was generated because of vacancies in staffing positions, the salary and benefit costs that were not paid out, a huge concentration of that savings came as a result of specifically teachers who are working with those English language learner students.

Another portion of the savings that generated that balance was the result of intervention and collaboration with us at the department to move costs out of their general fund into some of the federal COVID response dollars in an allowable way. I'm happy to share more details about that specifically.

I would just sort of wrap up on this one by pointing out that in December, Moody's came out with their most recent report on the district and specifically cited they've changed the negative outlook of the district. They've not made it a positive outlook, right, their credit rating is still one level above junk-bond status. They do not functionally have access to the borrowing market. And that Moody's pointed out in their study that that cash surplus in the '23-'24 school year, along with the ongoing presence of the two state-appointed monitors under the commissioner's direction, as positive factors in the work that they were doing in evaluating the district in terms of their opportunity to borrow and to be able to re-access those markets sooner rather than later.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:And the thing that's always left out of this equation is that it is one of the districts that pays close to 19, 20 percent in terms of transportation. Versus some of the neighboring districts that pay, you know, 5 to 8 percent. They spend an enormous amount of time on transportation.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Yeah, transportation is an issue. I look around the state and I think we've made it worse with the mandate for electric buses. I don't know how that's going to work out. The charging stations, I don't think we have the infrastructure right now that's sufficient to do the charging of these buses. And they don't work too well in the winter, and I don't know -- that's another story.

But anyway, thank you very much.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

I thought every question that I wanted to ask had already been covered, but then I went through my list and realized, nope.

So I want to talk to you about SED funds for public broadcasting. All right? It's part of your mandate, and there's specific funding. And the funds go to -- they are based on a formula that skews to support TV over radio. It's not that I'm opposed to the money going to the public TV stations, and I do understand it's being used very often for educational as well as cultural curricula for children.

But we're living in a moment where clearly we are going to be losing federal funds for public radio. I don't think anybody thinks we're not. And frankly, in many parts of the state public radio may be the only outlet for local news coverage for their communities, and they're very well listened to by huge numbers of the public in all the counties of New York State.

I know -- I come from New York City; my public radio station, WNYC, has already had to do a round of layoffs. I haven't surveyed the other public radio stations yet, but I suspect they're facing the same story.

So my question is because your mandate specifically says you're supposed to use a formula based on previous year's allocations, consideration of the need of results of changing technology and provision of new services or -- and/or emergencies or other exceptional circumstances affecting studio operations and transmission and/or state or federal requirement changes.

I'm convinced the federal part is we're going to lose the money.

So I'm asking whether we can be discussing some kind of evaluation of the need for education funds to be more broadly shared with public radio, which may require you call for more funds. Because I'm not asking you to tell me, you know, we'll cut public TV stations. I think you fund seven of them. I'm not exactly sure of the number; your people probably know. So I'm not sitting here saying let's cut, cut, cut public TV. But I really think it's a new requirement for our state to look hard at what the loss of independent journalism through public radio would mean for people in the entire State of New York.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So I would welcome the opportunity, to your point, to revisit the issue in light of the funding and in light of the focus.

So absolutely we'll be more than glad to pull our team that really works on and does really good work in this area -- but to revisit it and consider, is this -- you know, what does this look like, the investments, and is there maybe a better way to respond to this. More than glad to do that.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:And have you been spending all of the money? I think there was a special appropriation in the 2023 budget. I think it went all to TV stations. Maybe I'm wrong on that. Maybe some of it went to radio.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We'll get you the information.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:There's no chance you're not spending the money now or --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah, we'll get you the information. I'm not sure if we've been, you know, spending -- if we have spent all the money that's been allocated. So we will get you the information.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Okay. Yes, I would urge you to do so. I'm just finding it's been 14 million for radio stations, 58,500 for each license for the past seven years. So they've been flat. And it's a very small amount per radio station.

So I'm also making a pitch to my colleagues in both houses, start thinking about the importance of public radio to your constituents. Because it is really important. And we know that we're losing local newspapers so quickly; there are many, many communities that don't have any at all.

So that was my one question for today. I'll cede my time back. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Giglio.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:Good morning, and thank you for being here.

So student success is really based on them showing up and getting an education. So do you have truancy officers? And what are you doing to encourage and to incentivize children to come to school, and express that importance to the parents?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure.

So the whole issue of attendance, right, and chronic absenteeism and the focus on even working with our schools is enormous in our conversation.

DEPUTY COMMR. HARMON:Thank you for the question.

So from sort of an initial lens of thinking about how the department is leveraging a look at both attendance and chronic absenteeism, that's one of the indicators that we look at when we're making determinations around support models for schools across the state.

So we've just received approval and we'll be bringing back to our Board of Regents next month, actually, to move forward with a change to look at a new attendance indicator as part of that system of identifying districts for identical supports.

I would just note that we will continue to report out publicly by separate group -- by school, by district -- where there are rates of chronic absenteeism as well. So rather than just sort of swapping one measure out for the other, we will continue to leverage both of those.

In a lot of cases those data end up driving, at the local level, school improvement plans to focus on addressing the needs of students and families, where they can identify really specific root causes. I think this is an issue -- there's a recent Comptroller's report from October that highlighted really just how complex this issue is for individual family dynamics as well as larger system issues.

And so those efforts are also supported not just by a single office in the department, but a collaboration across multiple offices. So offices in accountability, offices in student support services, to be able to provide resources, best practices for schools and districts in their communication and outreach to parents and families to make sure that students are there, to your point, so that they are able to learn from the high-quality teachers that are working with them day in and day out.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:And I would just like to highlight that getting to the core of why students are not in school --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:Thank you.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:-- is -- is probably from the student support side of things where we're trying to get -- and yes, we were grateful for the RECOVS grant to be able to open up mental health clinics even within our schools, understanding that while we're grateful for that 50 million that we're able to turn around and give to schools, there is a greater need for mental health supports and for schools to be able to establish collaborations and partnerships with clinics to be able to provide those supports to children and their families.

Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:Thank you for your thoughtful answers.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

All right, we're up to three-minute second rounds for the chairs.

Shelley Mayer, three minutes.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think I have three questions. One is additional funding was given to SED last year to update your Holocaust materials. Can you give us an update on that?

Second is we don't have a lot of details on the dual enrollment issues proposed in the Governor's budget, if there's anything specific you could share on that.

Thirdly, I'd like your comments on the challenges facing the Mount Vernon school district where three of their elementary schools are slated to be closed and they have significant fiscal issues.

And fourth, the wait time for teacher certification applications and what you can do to reduce that wait time.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Sure. So I'm going to start with the work that we've been doing, as you know, with the Holocaust. That's been amazing work that we've been involved with. And as recent as I think last week we had a discussion about how this spring we're going to be providing not only resources but some of the relationships that we're building in this space.

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:So with the funding that we were provided -- and we're grateful for it -- we were able to partner with the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center in addition to the New York State Archives Partnership Trust.

And we are in the works of building out an open source material where teachers and schools will be able to access lesson plans of video clips, primary sources, to assist them in teaching about the Holocaust, as uplifted throughout our social studies framework and our current New York State standards.

We look forward to bringing that to the public this spring, I want to say sometime around May that we will be able to release those materials in addition to providing some professional learning opportunities from us at the state in collaboration with those partners to make sure that teachers understand how to utilize them.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:If I could speak to the Mount Vernon question.

SENATOR MAYER:Yes, Mount Vernon.

NYSED CFO COUGHLIN:I know the commissioner and many of my colleagues have been working with the district and the district leadership to try to provide support to the district as it moves through a very challenging fiscal place.

I would note that because of significant enrollment losses, Mount Vernon is actually on save harmless in Foundation Aid, despite the poverty of the student population. So they're one of those districts that's in the position where costs are increasing faster than their funding is.

And with their enrollment losses, those three buildings -- you know, it is a -- it's a local decision in order to decide to close a school building, and we know it's very challenging for the communities. But the save harmless concern that many of your colleagues have raised today plays a role there too.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We'll get to the other two.

SENATOR MAYER:My time is up. Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Magnarelli for three minutes.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Thank you.

I'm going back to the question that I had a couple of hours ago, okay? The Executive proposal includes establishing a new statewide policy for tracking success of dual enrollment, otherwise known as College in High School. And you were giving me, you know, why we needed to do that. And my question to you was like, how many students have complained?

There's been problems like this for 25, 30 years they've been going on. Some of those programs -- you know, people know whether those hours are transferable or not transferable. This has been there forever. Now we're going to do a mandated reporting requirement on the schools. To me, that has some kind of a chilling effect on even bothering to do it. That's number one.

Number two, it also has a bigger question that I ask. Okay? How many mandates do we put on our schools in terms of reporting? I'm sure there are some that are absolutely necessary. And then there are others that are mandated by the federal government or something else, you know, for a grant or things like that. But has anybody done a study -- I've heard a lot of studies today, a lot of studies going on. Any studies about reducing the number of requirements and mandates placed on every one of our school districts and the costs of doing those mandates?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:Okay, so I'll start at the beginning with the College in High School piece and the data piece. That is only for those that are going to participate. Right now one of the issues with, like, P-TECH --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Talk into the mic again, please?

SR. DEP. COMMISSIONER MATTESON:I'm sorry.

-- P-TECH, Smart Scholars, Early College High School is we have to manually then pull data together if we haven't created a system to collect data about who's doing what when it comes to the space of dual enrollment.

We have had concerns from the public that in some places in the state it costs money to get the dual enrollment credit. Some places they're not charging for the dual enrollment credit.

We have the data that 2 percent of our students actually have access to the robust early college experiences rather than the one-offs. So we have a lot of students doing the one-offs and having money spent and it doesn't lead to anything for their college education.

We're trying to reinforce the system where at least the minimum base 12 credits that's transferable between all of our colleges and universities can be available to students, and spread that around the state. It's not --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:So why isn't that done on a state level rather than mandating that contracts be entered into on a local level? It -- again, it's just adding more requirements that have to be fulfilled. That's the way I look at this stuff.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Senator John Liu, three-minute second round for the chair.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you, Madam Chair.

You know, I know the Regents and the department have been working on the graduation requirements for a long time. I still have strong reservations about eliminating the requirement for passing Regents exams, which, you know -- I mean, I've said to you these are not the most robust exams to begin with. So I know we're still several years or at least a couple of years away from the rollout of this.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Right.

SENATOR LIU:But, you know, is this the plan? Is this plan now set in stone?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:So let me start, Senator, by saying that, you know -- to your point, we're not eliminating, so that's number one. I think there's still the conversation about what we're --

SENATOR LIU:I know --

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:No, no, no, we're --

SENATOR LIU:I know that's the line.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:What it is not -- what we're shifting on is that it has been the barrier, the one sole thing that has kept children from graduating. So what we're saying, it's more --

SENATOR LIU:Graduating with a Regents diploma.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Yeah. But most -- okay, so most kids who go to SUNY from out of state do not come in with a Regents diploma, because that state doesn't require them to have a Regents diploma. Nor does SUNY say, Now you've got to take the Regents exam in order to be part of the cohort coming in. So --

SENATOR LIU:So is the implication that the Regents diploma -- I'm sorry, the -- yeah, the New York State Regents diploma was not meaningful to begin with?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:No, the implication is that just as we trust Connecticut sending their children with a Connecticut diploma, without a Regents diploma, and New Jersey and any other place, then we have what's called a New York State diploma. And in essence, those students are accepted into our higher ed institutions without any of that.

Now I'll go one step further. Senator, many of the people sitting here, if you've come from different places, you're very successful, you didn't even take the Regents exam, and here you are. So my thing is you're correct that it's an exam --

SENATOR LIU:Well, we can use different words, but it is removing the requirement to take the Regents exams.

But let's talk about this portrait of the graduate. I mean, how is that going to be achievable in a place like New York City where we still have overcrowded class sizes? Who's going to draw that portrait of the graduate?

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:We have met with New York City, right, and there's such enthusiasm because believe it or not, Senator, a lot of school districts are related doing this work, because of the fact that they're preparing students with critical thinking skills, they are doing project-based, they're taking the standards and applying them, they're doing internships. It is a much more deep --

SENATOR LIU:I think it will be that much more difficult when the class sizes are a little too excessive, particularly in New York City.

Thank you.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senate, do you have another?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:No, the Senate is closed.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:And the Assembly is closed -- oh, I'm sorry, Bobby.

Assemblyman Carroll for his ...

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Assemblymember Pretlow, I'm offended.

Commissioner Rosa, I was glad to hear you say that you support decodable texts and decodable readers for our early readers. Has SED done an accounting of our school libraries to see if they have access to decodable texts?

DEPUTY CMMR. JOHNSON-DINGLE:While we have not done a specific study to say, what I can say is that for all of our schools that do have -- we do have processes in place to have an understanding of the different catalogs and types of books that exist within school libraries.

However, that is to say while we have not done an official study, we do have some data that we can look at to get an idea.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:I would recommend you do that accounting, because I will foreshadow a question I have for the New York City Public Schools chancellor, which is that though we have made changes in our literacy curriculum and we are moving towards the science of reading and evidence-based practices, we still have so many leveled readers that are rooted in poor pedagogy and asking children to guess and look at pictures.

I have a school in my own district that's a wonderful school, that's trying to make this shift, but every evening they send home leveled texts to their students even though they are trying to do structured and sequential phonics in the classroom in the morning. It makes no sense.

So I urge you to do that accounting, because what you will find is that my guess is because we did 20 years of whole language, that most of our public school libraries are filled with leveled readers and have no decodable texts. And we need to change that.

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Assemblyman Carroll.

And that does close this hearing. Commissioner and staff, I --

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:It doesn't close the hearing.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Oh, I'm sorry. Your portion of the hearing. We have another 39 groups.

(Laughter.)

NYSED COMMISSIONER ROSA:I thought we were all done for the entire week. But no, thank you for the opportunity.

And for those who did not get their questions, I'm more than glad to meet with you to absolutely set up private and separate meetings, because the communication and the sharing of information is extremely important for our total advocacy.

So thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

The New York City Department of Education, you're next.

(Pause.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Can we take the outside conversations outside so we can proceed, please?

(Pause.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Are we ready? Okay. Good afternoon. I guess you can introduce yourselves, and then we'll start.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Melissa Aviles-Ramos, and I am the chancellor of New York City Public Schools.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Can you speak a little louder, please, or bring the microphone closer?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Of course.

Good afternoon. My name is Melissa Aviles-Ramos, and I am the chancellor of New York City Public Schools.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Good afternoon. I'm Dan Weisberg. I'm the first deputy chancellor of New York City Public Schools. Great to be here.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Good afternoon. Great to be here. I'm Emma Vadehra, deputy chancellor for operations and finance, New York City Public Schools.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Good afternoon I'm Seritta Scott. I'm the chief financial officer here at New York City Public Schools.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:A pleasure.

Ms. Ramos, go.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Good afternoon. Thank you to Senator Krueger, Assemblymember Pretlow, Senator Liu, Assemblymember Benedetto, Senator Mayer, and members of their respective committees. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the proposed 2026 New York State Education Budget, and I also want to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year.

My name is Melissa Aviles-Ramos. I have the honor of serving as chancellor of New York City Public Schools. I have dedicated my career to the education of New York City's children, first as a high school English teacher back in 2007, then as a principal, deputy superintendent, acting superintendent, chief of staff, and deputy chancellor. In my nearly two decades of service, I have pushed the boundaries on what seemed possible.

When I became a principal in 2016, for instance, only about a quarter of the senior cohort was on track to graduate. Quite simply, I was told that only 23 percent of my students would graduate that year. By June of that same year, 66.7 percent had earned their diplomas. The following year, my team and I raised that graduation rate even further, to nearly 82 percent.

Later, when the pandemic hit, I transitioned my school to remote instruction and then stepped up to serve at the district level as the deputy superintendent, and then acting superintendent, for Bronx high schools.

When I came to our central office, I led the launch of Project Open Arms, working across our department and city to support tens of thousands of migrant students. As chief of staff to the former chancellor, I continued coordinating this work alongside other key initiatives such as NYC Reads, the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, our bilingual teacher pipeline, and our mindful breathing initiative.

In all this time, through moments of challenge and change, my focus has never wavered. I have always worked tirelessly to provide children with the opportunities and support they need to thrive.

Today I'd like to share some updates on our progress. In the Adams administration, we are cultivating bold futures for our young people. I am proud that NYC Reads, our signature initiative to adopt the science of reading in our classrooms, is now reaching our youngest learners citywide, including all 840-plus elementary schools. NYC Solves, our transformative approach to math instruction, has launched in over 400 high schools and approximately 100 middle schools. All in all, through NYC Reads and NYC Solves, over half a million students are benefiting from high-quality curricula and research-driven pedagogy.

I'm also thrilled that our reimagined college and career pathways initiatives continue to flourish, equipping students with the skills and experiences to be successful in college and in the rapidly changing workplace. For example, our FutureReadyNYC program has expanded to serve 15,000 students, and with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as our newest anchor partner, we are making even greater inroads into the fields of healthcare, technology, business, and more. Just last school year, our students earned over $10 million in wages from work-based learning.

As someone who played a key role in shaping these foundational programs in my previous roles, I am proud to now continue these initiatives as chancellor and show how they align with my three commitments to our community: Ensuring safety and wellness for all students; supporting educators; and empowering families and communities.

My first commitment takes a comprehensive approach to safety and wellness. In addition to our existing initiatives, we are ramping up supports for our newest New Yorkers to ensure that our schools are safe spaces for students and families, no matter their immigration status.

Over the past few months, we have led extensive training across our community for a wide range of stakeholders, from principals to guidance counselors, reiterating our long-standing protocols for access to our buildings. New York City Public Schools is committed to protecting the right of every student to attend public school, regardless of immigration status, national origin, or religion. Likewise, we are committed to supporting our LGBTQ+ students, and in 2021, as just one example, we updated our guidelines on gender inclusion to enshrine this support in policy.

Secondly, I am committed to uplifting our educators. Now that we have completed the initial launch of NYC Reads and NYC Solves, the next phase is to focus deeply on both implementation and intervention, so that no students slip through the cracks. It is essential that we support our educators in these areas, and I am proud to announce today that we are investing in an additional year of job-embedded coaching and support for our NYC Reads educators.

My third commitment is to empowering our families and communities. This commitment really came into focus for me personally a few years ago, when my daughter entered New York City Public Schools. I, as a parent who works for our school system, still struggle to navigate it at times. If that's true for me, what does that mean for other parents? I realized how much further we must go to truly involve our families in their children's education. And to that end, I hosted a five-borough listening tour at the end of last year, with over a thousand students and families in attendance.

I will continue to champion programs that are beloved by our families. For example, I am glad to share that our comprehensive academic- and enrichment-based Summer Rising program will be back this year, with applications opening in early March.

I want to thank the Governor for proposing a fiscal year '26 budget that places children and families front and center. The Governor's priorities align with so many of ours. She outlined universal free breakfast and lunch, which we have been implementing here in New York City for years. She is planning a "bell-to-bell" ban on cellphones, which we have been studying and considering -- approximately 800 of our schools already have policies in place to keep cellphones out of the classroom. And she proposed an expansion of early college credit opportunities for high schoolers, which we currently offer via one of the largest and most successful programs in the country. We are grateful for and look forward to state support on these shared priorities.

I also want to be clear and direct about our concerns related to the Governor's proposed budget as it stands currently. There is no question that the Foundation Aid formula needs a revamp, but the Governor's proposed changes to the formula would actually result in nearly 350 million fewer dollars to New York City Public Schools than we'd be entitled to under the current formula, disproportionately impacting our system compared to many other districts.

As we have testified previously, this formula, which took about two decades to fully fund, is by now long out of date. It does not address the realities of providing a high-quality education today to nearly 1 million students, especially our most vulnerable populations -- students in temporary housing, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.

As a result, New York City is contributing more than its fair share of the cost of running our school system. In 2002, the state and New York City contributed equally to our schools, but today, 57 percent of our funding comes from New York City and only 36 percent from the state. Last school year, we also rolled out a new weight in New York City's funding formula for students in temporary housing, which the Foundation Aid formula does not currently consider.

We strongly request that the state consider the recommendations we made last summer to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, including updating the regional cost metrics to better take into account the cost of living in New York City and updating and enhancing support for our high-needs students. Incorporating these recommendations will ensure Foundation Aid can provide the services and resources our students and families deserve.

In addition, I'd like to comment on the proposed cellphone ban. I am in strong agreement with the Governor that access to cellphones during the school day distracts from learning, divides attention, and worsens students' mental health. That's why, back when I was a principal, we were a cellphone-free school.

While it is reassuring to see there is funding attached to the Governor's proposal, the current dollar amount is inadequate. Implementing an effective cellphone ban is a major undertaking, and funding is also critical when it comes to addressing parents' concerns about communicating with their children in emergencies.

Next I want to thank the Governor for her early college proposals, including the launch of the College in High School program. We think even more funding in this area would be beneficial, especially as New York City Public Schools works towards the goal of ensuring that by 2030, 100 percent of graduating students will have access to college credit. We hope legislators will use the budget process to enhance this important investment and ensure it is allocated to districts fairly, based on student need.

Before I close, I'd like to update this body on our progress toward meeting the state class-size mandate. This school year, over 46 percent of classes are at or below the class-size caps prescribed by the law, well above the 40 percent requirement for '24-'25. To achieve this, we worked closely with the UFT, CSA, and our superintendents; supported school budgets with hundreds of millions of additional dollars designated for class-size reduction; and incorporated recommendations from our class-size working group.

We are also implementing a new plan to ensure compliance in the upcoming school year. Over 750 schools submitted class-size reduction plans, which we are reviewing alongside our union partners, for dedicated funding. We are making good progress. But to reach full compliance by 2028, as the law requires, we will require significant additional resources.

As we look to the future, and as New York City Public Schools empowers the next generation of New Yorkers, I am grateful for the meaningful engagement and partnership with all of you, our state legislators. I look forward to continuing our collaboration over the coming months and years.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblymember Carroll.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you, Chair Pretlow.

Good afternoon, Chancellor. It's very nice to meet you. First let me commend you and your team and your predecessor, Chancellor Banks, on the NYC Reads program. As somebody who worked with Chancellor Banks hard on that project, I know how difficult it was to get it on its feet and how difficult it will continue to be to make sure that not only do we give evidence-based instruction to our children, but we do it with fidelity and continually so that all our children can become fluid and fluent readers.

I would like -- I asked the previous panel this question, so I will ask it to you. As New York City has changed its pedagogy and approach to early childhood literacy, has New York City gone to its school libraries and removed leveled readers from those libraries and replaced them with decodable texts?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you so much, Assemblyman Carroll. And I also want to thank you for the work that you did in partnership with New York City Public Schools to make NYC Reads a success. Your story and your support really inspired this work.

What I will say is that NYC Reads is not only a literacy initiative, it is addressing a curricular and instructional inequity that we have seen across New York City for many, many years. A parent should not have to worry about sending their child to a school in the South Bronx and worry about the kinds if instruction and curriculum that they're getting, versus when they are sent to a school in another district that is not quite so poor and challenged.

And so what we did in the first phase was really focus on learning the actual curriculum. Our teachers, making --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Chancellor, I understand that. I'm deeply familiar with what the previous chancellor and what you are doing about implementing NYC Reads. My question is, have you done an accounting --

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I understand your question, Assemblymember.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:So have you done an accounting and are there -- are we removing leveled readers and replacing them with decodable texts?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:If you would allow me to just explain to you a summary of the journey for Phase 2, then we will get to your answer.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Sure.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:And so part of that is taking inventory of the interventions that are also supporting our students in our Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction -- meaning the students who are still struggling despite the curriculum that is front of them.

As part of that, we are also taking inventory of the resources. It is important that we take inventory of the interventions before we get to the resources. I understand -- and I heard you as I was sitting here in the audience, that there are texts that are not aligned with NYC Reads. The team immediately took note of that, and we are going to work with our Division of School Leadership.

But to answer you quite directly, we have not gotten to a massive systemwide inventory of those resources because we are now at the point where we're taking inventory of the interventions.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you.

And look, I look forward to working with you to make sure that we solve that issue.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:As do we.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Pivoting to -- staying on the topic of libraries, school librarians: I believe there's approximately 260 school librarians in the New York City Public Schools system right now, down from approximately 1600. There are some rubrics about when a school gets a part-time librarian, when a school gets a full-time librarian. I think schools over 800 students are supposed to have full-time librarians.

What is the plan for New York City to get more librarians into our schools so that they can help both students and teachers getting children the materials they so desperately need?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Yep. School libraries have been a challenge for us for a number of reasons. At this point, 74 percent of schools do not have a library program or a NYSED-certified librarian. One of the challenges is that we don't have enough librarians, and I will speak to the work that we're doing to recruit more.

But the second part of it is also that principals have discretion over their budget and if a budget is declining due to declining enrollments, the principal has to make a very difficult decision: Do I hire a librarian or do I hire an extra special education teacher? And so we're also working with our schools to address some of those issues.

In terms of pipeline work, though, we have established a partnership with Syracuse University, St. John Fisher University, and New Visions to develop a pipeline. We also have our Teacher 2 Librarian program where we've certified 80 school librarians from -- coming from teachers who are already certified.

And the other thing that we don't talk enough about is our digital library, which has been very successful. So 64,000 books have been opened, 23,000 hours spent reading. And so as we navigate the challenges to make sure that the schools have functioning libraries and that they have a certified librarian in the library, we are also leveraging these other resources like the digital library to make sure kids have access to age-appropriate texts.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you.

So now I would like to pivot to students with disabilities, specifically children struggling with dyslexia. Though I said previously that I commend you for the successes of NYC Reads, I see, from the outside, NYC Reads as mostly a Tier 1 intervention, and a very important Tier 1 intervention. But of course students struggling with phonological awareness issues such as dyslexia are still at record numbers suing the New York City Public Schools system because their needs are not being met at their local public school.

And the reason that they're suing them is because they are not getting the small-group, intensive, multisensory structured phonics-based instruction that they need. That is what they are seeking, that is what every single one of them is seeking. The private schools that they end up being placed in, that is exactly what they do.

Why can't we do that in our local public schools?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Well, this goes back to what I started discussing earlier around the interventions. When we started conducting this inventory of the interventions at the Tier 2 and Tier 3 level, we found that there are almost 40 across our schools, and in some cases schools are using multiple ones -- not necessarily with rhyme or reason or any specific dosage.

And so that is very difficult for a child to make those leaps and bounds if we do not standardize some of that intervention process. And so we're engaging in that work right now, and we look forward to continued conversations with you on the implementation of that and our progress.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Well, I agree with you that we need to standardize it in a system that's as big as New York City. What I hope that New York City realizes is that the parents who are put through this, and the children who are put through this, would like an option at their local public schools. That is what they prefer. That is why they keep trying and failing, trying and failing -- and when they realize they will never get the services that they so desperately need for their son or daughter, that they turn to suing the New York City Public Schools system.

And it is very clear, there are number of world-class institutions in New York City that have for the last 40, 50, 60 years remediated issues around dyslexia sitting at our doorstep. David Banks, the first thing he did was go to the Windward school with me.

The sad thing is, three-plus years later we have not gone to a place like the Windward School and said, Let us figure out what you're doing in your classrooms. None of it's with technology. None of it is newfangled. All of it they've been doing for the last 50 years. We need to do this in our schools. I get that it won't happen in all 840 elementary schools tomorrow. But it is crazy that it is not happening at some of our local public schools today.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Well, and I would just say yes, more needs to be done. I'm never going to sit here and say that our job is done and that we've accomplished this grand mission a hundred percent, because that would be false. And it also wouldn't be true to the values I have as an educator as well as the mother of a struggling reader in New York City Public Schools.

What I will say is that we have taken your lead, Assemblymember, and as I mentioned in my remarks, we are grateful to you for your partnership. It's the reason why there is a South Bronx Literacy Academy that is dedicated to supporting students with dyslexia. It is the reason why we are doubling down on the interventions and doing another year of teacher support. Because to your point, if the teachers do not have the resources they need to implement the curriculum and to intervene appropriately, students will not advance.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you, Chancellor. And I look forward to continued partnering with you. And thank you for your work.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Likewise. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

We're going to start with the chair of the New York City Education Committee, John Liu, 10 minutes.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you, Madam Chair.

Congratulations, Chancellor. I was sorry to see David Banks go, but I'm happy that you're there.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you.

SENATOR LIU:And I know it's only been, what, four months? Probably feels like four years.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Three, but no one's counting.

(Laughter.)

SENATOR LIU:Okay, three months.

You are in a difficult spot, and so you're going to be on the spot for difficult questions. Right?

In New York City for hundreds of years, and certainly in modern times, we have recognized a need to protect everyone in New York City. And that means our health policies look to make everybody healthy. because when some people are sick or unwell, it makes potentially the entire city sick or unwell.

Similarly, we try to educate everybody because whether the family's been here for generations or for two weeks, educating people is always the best investment. We make a windfall profit on everybody that goes through the New York City education system.

So let me start off with this. Has there been any kind of identification of a drop-off in attendance in the last month?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you for the question, Senator Liu. And I --

SENATOR LIU:You don't have to thank me for the questions. There will be plenty more.

(Laughter.)

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Well, at some point I'll stop thanking you for them, but we're early on, so thank you for this one.

(Laughter.)

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:So since the inauguration, we saw an attendance between 84 and 89 percent. And when we look at the same week last year, that range was from 89 to 92 percent.

Now, there are additional factors. We know that we had a very, very cold week and the temperature does often impact our attendance. While that drop in attendance isn't egregious, there is a drop since last year at the same time.

SENATOR LIU:I mean, that's a -- I would think that's a pretty substantial drop. A 4 to 7 percent, that's significant.

And while you're saying some of that might be due to cold weather -- I mean, it is January, right. Is it -- would it be safe to conclude that a large portion of that drop-off in attendance is due to fear by immigrant families and parents?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I think what we can safely say is that it is one of several factors.

SENATOR LIU:Okay. So I think -- I think it's a big factor.

And my next question for you is, are the school principals clear on how they're going to respond to anything that they are partially expecting already? Do they have clarity? Because I'll be very honest, I've heard from a lot of principals they're not sure what they're going to do.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:They're not sure what they're going to do in terms of what, Senator? In terms of supporting with attendance and making sure families feel safe to come in?

SENATOR LIU:No, in terms of who they open the door for.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Understood. So our policies around law enforcement entering the building remain the same. Without a judicial warrant, we cannot have members of law enforcement just walk into a building and take children.

We have communicated our policies to our principals. We have hosted a number of trainings, and I will pass it over to Deputy Chancellor Emma Vadehra to get more into the details.

But we know that there is fear amongst our families, and we also know that principals have a very heavy lift in not only understanding the policies themselves, but also communicating them to their stakeholder groups.

So one of the things that we did is those same trainings, we actually offered them to our school counselors and we offered them to our parent coordinators. Very important that our parent coordinators are part of this process, because they are often the first lines of defense.

SENATOR LIU:Okay. And so is it the DOE or our public schools' policy that they do not let -- that the principals, including the entire team, including the school safety agents, they do not allow entry for law enforcement without judicial warrants?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:That is correct.

SENATOR LIU:Or is it that they don't have to? They cannot, or they don't have to?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:They cannot.

SENATOR LIU:They cannot. All right, thank you. All right.

And what about communications to parents?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Yes, we've also hosted a number of workshops for our families as well.

So Deputy Chancellor, if you could talk a little bit about the details.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Thank you very much for the question. Sorry to thank you, but we do appreciate this question.

So just to be clear -- the chancellor touched on this, but, you know, we of course started hearing about this the day after the election, and the chancellor owned and continues to drive this work vitally, essentially.

So we actually pushed out the guidance we have in terms of non-local law enforcement in our schools back in December out to our principals -- all of our principals -- as well as some other reminders about students' rights to education, about not asking about immigration status -- sort of the set of policies we have in place, as you said, to make sure we're educating all of our students.

So the guidance got pushed out in December. Since then, starting in January, we've hosted a number of trainings. We had over 1500 people on our principals training. We did trainings for parent coordinators, school counselors, guidance counselors. We also worked with NYPD to do trainings with school safety and to make sure they understand that actually the protocol for them is the same as the protocol for us, which is they call the principal and our principal engages with our lawyers here.

So we have done those --

SENATOR LIU:Can you just describe briefly what a valid judicial warrant would be? And who would know what a valid judicial warrant looks like?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:So I will just -- I'll take the second part, because it's a piece of our protocol that I think is worth flagging, and then Dan, the lawyer, I will turn to on the first part.

So part of this -- this is actually sort of part of the question in terms of our protocol, which is what we say to our principals is we don't expect you to make this determination on your own. You will call your lawyers.

And so that's the protocol they're given. SSAs are told to call their principals, so the principals can call New York City Public Schools' lawyers, who will be the ones making those determinations.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

On a different subject, I share your concern with the Foundation Aid formula changes as proposed by the Executive Budget. Are there any suggestions that New York City would have in terms of how to reshape the Foundation Aid formula, particularly with regard to the poverty definition or possibly adding the additional weight for students in temporary housing?

And, you know, perhaps do you have a sense as to how much that additional weight in the Fair Student Funding formula is costing?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Yes, thank you very much. And we heard the earlier conversation on this as well --

SENATOR LIU:You're quite welcome!

(Laughter.)

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:It's like a tic of some sort.

So as the chancellor flagged in her testimony, we think the poverty change -- poverty set of changes in the Governor's budget proposal would impact us to the tune of almost $350 million for New York City alone.

SENATOR LIU:Yeah, but how would you change that?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Yes, getting there.

So I will say, because I noticed SED commented on this as well. Updating the poverty rate in some way makes sense. We agree that that makes sense. When both the Regents and Rockefeller recommended something like that, they did recommend pairing it with a regional cost shift as well, which gets into why the poverty rate change alone impacts New York City in a negative way.

So again, both the Regents and Rockefeller propose those two things together. And we do think that's one way to look at updating the poverty rate, but also update the related pieces of the formula.

We also have recommended a students in temporary housing weight, as we've done in New York City Public Schools. Our current weight across New York City Public Schools is about $80 million this year across our school system, just for students in temporary housing. Which is itself more than the McKinney-Vento money we get. It's a far more substantial investment in our students in temporary housing.

We also do think it's worth the state taking a look at how the weights work for English learners and students with disabilities as well. We think there could be both more substantial and more nuanced ways of looking at that, which is what we do. And Rockefeller actually pointed to our formula as a good way of looking at students with disabilities.

SENATOR LIU:Okay. And since you're appreciating my questions so much, I have one last one for you since you're the chief financial officer.

You know, the NYC Reads program -- was I wrong about that?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:No, no.

SENATOR LIU:Okay. The NYC Reads program has been widely praised. At this point, is there now some kind of idea as to how much it costs?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Senator, this is actually our chief financial officer (pointing to CFO Scott).

SENATOR LIU:I'm sorry about that.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Because of the mistake, I won't thank you for the question.

(Laughter.)

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:It's roughly 55 million to support the program.

SENATOR LIU:I'm sorry, what was that?

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Sorry. It's roughly 55 million to support the program.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Just to be clear, Senator, that -- you know, that's the current cost. Our plan is to continue to scale. So the chancellor's vision is ultimately we're going to have high-quality instruction, well-supported teachers, pre-K -- actually, 3-K all the way through 12 in ELA and math. We're not close to that yet, so the cost will continue to rise as we expand and deepen.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Smith.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Chancellor, for being here with us. Congratulations. And hearing your biography -- this is our first time meeting -- I'm very excited to hear that you have experience in every field, every part of the educational system from being a classroom teacher to being a parent and involved in that way.

So a few topics right now. You mentioned the cellphone ban and the success and challenges you've had in New York City. Can you speak to that a little bit more about what you think, as the budget proposal continues, regarding the implementation? obviously maybe it's not enough money specifically. But can you speak a little bit more about that?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I can. And thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak about it, because it's something that I feel very strongly about.

When I was a principal I only had around 400 children in my school, so I actually collected our cellphones in bubble bags. The cellphone pouches that can open with a magnet, they are very expensive, but they are the ideal model because children can keep them on their person. And in the event of an emergency, they can open them up with a magnet that is strategically placed throughout the building.

I was broke, I didn't have that kind of money. So when I had an emergency and needed to evacuate, I needed to get 400 cellphones back into the hands of high school students. That was very, very challenging.

And so when I think about families having the fear -- and again, as the mother of a New York City public school student myself, I want to make sure that our schools have clear communication plans so that in the event of an emergency they can reach their families directly. So that's one part of the funding that we would need.

The second piece is the logistical piece. If a school does not have the funds for one of those magnetic pouches, they would need to designate additional personnel to collect the cellphones, to distribute them, to guard them to make sure that they are not stolen, they are not broken. That costs a lot of money. You sometimes have to have an additional school aide or two who are just dedicated to that work.

And thirdly, because we want to make sure that we offer the option of those pouches, those magnetic bags, those are roughly $30 a child. And that's an annual fee. Those bags are not -- you know, you can't use them for more than one year. And we're not even talking, you know, like the Gucci/Prada version, we're talking about just the standard bag. And so we want to make sure that the models that are available to schools, that they can afford them.

The other thing is that roughly 800 of our schools have already signed up to do this work. And what we don't want to tell them is continue to self-fund while we pay for schools to get on the bus. Particularly if the Foundation Aid formula does not adjust, then there's going to be a decrease in the funding that they get and we're potentially looking at federal cuts that contribute to $2 billion of our budget.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:I think you bring up a good point. You know, these items are a thousand dollars each, so to put that on the employees and on the school, it's a lot. And then even as you mention, to put it on every period -- I was a high school teacher, you know, and I'm a parent as well.

There's also an emotional side of this. So as I'm going throughout my district and speaking with parents the first thought and concern they have is, Well, if there's an emergency, I want to be able to reach my kid. But I -- and maybe you can speak to this a little bit. I've kind of urged them and said, You know, if there's an emergency, we really want the students listening to the adult in the room, taking direction.

And everybody I've spoken to in emergency services has said kind of the same thing, that they want to know that the students are not distracted when they could be in harm's way.

Can you speak to that?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:A hundred percent.

But we're also thinking about children who travel on their own in many cases, and so it's not necessarily of the emergency in the building, it's also what happens at dismissal. Right? And so we need to make sure that if there is an emergency -- and we don't want to sit here and imagine that there would be one, but if there is, while the school is communicating, at some point the child is going to have to be in touch with a caretaker and make sure that they are having the conversation around where do we meet, can I get myself home. So it's not just about that school piece.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Okay, thank you. I think you've addressed some of those issues. And it's news to me, that $30 per item. That's very cost-prohibitive, that could be for your schools and schools across the state.

But you do believe that that's the preferable way, instead of having kind of like the thing on the back of the door where you put it in every period?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I absolutely do believe that that is the best. That is the best way.

And if I may just say one more thing. We know that taking away cellphones during bell-to-bell instruction is going to keep instruction sacred. We know that. But the reason why we are also coupling this with huge supports in mental health is because we know that taking away cellphones from bell to bell is not necessarily going to cure the mental health issues that are happening once they get their cellphones back. Cellphones are an instrument to express your frustrations, your loneliness, your depression. But that doesn't mean that if we take them away during the school day those things are going to disappear.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Thank you for recognizing it. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Next, Shelley Mayer, 10 minutes, chair of Education.

SENATOR MAYER:Good afternoon, Chancellor, and thank you for really taking on a tough assignment at a tough moment.

If the Legislature or the Governor doesn't fix the initial proposal that really reduces what you thought you would get by 350 million, have you come up with a contingency plan? What would it look like for the New York City Public Schools to lose $350 million of anticipated funds?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you so much. So, Senator, I first of all appreciate the question because it gives us an opportunity to really talk to you not only about the dollar amount, but just to paint a picture of the kinds of programs that we're talking about.

We had to self-fund several after-school programs. We know that we need a lot of additional academic support for our multilingual learners, our students with IEPs. So those are just some of the areas that we are concerned about.

But I'm going to ask our CFO and our deputy chancellor to talk more about the details.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Sure. So one, we have rolling costs across the city, right, inflation --

SENATOR MAYER:Can you get closer to the microphone?

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:I'm sorry. Is that better?

SENATOR MAYER:Yes.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Yup, so we have rolling costs across the city, inflation, everything is rising for us. But essentially we have the funds pay for our mandated services. We have special education, we have things for our general education that supports that.

And also to the chancellor's point -- sorry, I'm totally losing my train of thought here. But there are a number of things that we -- a majority of our funding goes into schools, right? We've been holding schools harmless, that's the point that I wanted to make, from any enrollment loss. And so we've been holding schools stable. We won't be able to do that without having this essential funding -- and, again, helping us to pay for our mandated costs such as special education.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

What is the change in enrollment in the New York City Public Schools over the last year?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:So it's been about flat, Senator. So it's about 905,000 -- or 908,000. So it inched up the prior year, and then it's about flat this year.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay. And what's the current graduation rate of New York City Public Schools?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:It's about 83 percent or so.

SENATOR MAYER:Has that changed in the last few years?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:It's increased slightly. And we're just waiting for the state to report out graduation rates for the most recent cohort. But it's increased slightly.

COVID -- not to get too deep into the weeds, but, you know, some of the graduation requirements were waived during COVID, and so that had an impact. And now those requirements are being imposed again, so we'll see what happens with graduation rates.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay. I see that the USOMB just rescinded yesterday's order. But that being said, that doesn't mean something like that isn't going to come back. If the New York City Public Schools were to lose funding under the Project 2025 proposal, either Title I or IDEA funding, what is the dollar value of the federal funding that the New York City Public Schools receive?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:We receive a bit over $2 billion from the federal government.

SENATOR MAYER:Two billion?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Two billion. And just to give a sense of the other big ones, because they're not all Department of Education and some others are named in Project 2025, Head Start is another big one, childcare and development block grants, and also school food is another major funding stream from the federal government.

SENATOR MAYER:Can you provide us an itemized list of where those federal funds go by program, so that we can understand and make the case that this loss of federal funds has a concrete impact on the students and the families in New York City Public Schools?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Thank you very much for that request, and we can absolutely send that as a follow-up.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay, good. You don't have to thank me either.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:I will for that one, though.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay, thank you.

On the dual enrollment issues that the Governor proposed, I saw in your testimony you're favorable but not very specific. And frankly the proposal isn't very specific either. How many students in the New York City Public Schools are enrolled in some kind of dual enrollment program? And what is your preferred way for a dual enrollment program to work best for students?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:I don't have the -- I don't have the specific number. We'll get that for you maybe as we sit here, Senator, and we'll be able to report to you about it by the end of the hearing. I can say the number of our students -- and this is a core part of our Future Ready program of making sure our kids graduate ready for the workforce -- has increased. The percentage of students who are getting early college credit has increased by 10 percent just over the last two years. This is a big piece.

Very importantly, and this gets to your second part of your question, the percentage of students who are passing those courses so they can get credit when they go to college, that's increased as well by 5 percent. That's a really important indicator. It's not just taking a college class, we actually want our kids to pass it and get credit, get an A or a B or a C.

And, you know, in terms of our preferred structure, dual enrollment is really important where very concretely our teachers, our high school teachers are designated as adjuncts by our higher ed partners, CUNY or other higher ed partners. Why is that important? That means while the student is in high school taking a class, it's from a teacher who's teaching at a college level, and they're getting credit there.

It's great for our kids to go to college campuses, but it's a burden as well. So kids who are in early college programs, very often they go to their high school in the morning and then they've got to go someplace, sometimes to another borough -- they've got to jump on a train, skip lunch, go to another borough to get to the college campus to take college-level courses. Much better for us if we can have true dual enrollment where they're getting college credit for courses that are being taught by our teachers.

We want some of both, but we want the choice.

SENATOR MAYER:Have you communicated that in any kind of formal way that your preference is for the teachers to be certified as adjuncts, as opposed to, for example, like in P-TECH where in the afternoon they go into an internship?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Right. So that conversation is one that we're having right now with the Governor's folks.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay. Okay.

And then lastly I know -- in the first place, you have a very impressive civics curriculum that you shared with me and I was glad to go to school with you. Can you just briefly describe whether there are additional costs associated with your quite aggressive civics curriculum and efforts in the New York schools?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Yes, we are very proud of our civics program. Thank you for joining us on that great school visit.

So I'm going to ask our CFO and deputy chancellor to talk a little bit about the costs associated.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:I'll get back to you on the costs for the civics program.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you. Okay.

Last is you talked about NYC Reads, NYC Solves, your math enrichment or intentional math improvement -- which is a statewide problem, frankly, math scores. Have you seen tangible results as a result of that? And if so, what are they, and can you share them?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:So we have not seen the results yet, to be completely honest with you. And in fact I have to really thank our partners at the UFT because they have been working closely with us, monitoring this on the ground.

It's a great idea. We have great intentions. But the shift to conceptual math has been a bit of a challenge for some of our teachers and many of our children.

And so we are now in the process of working with the UFT. We've identified excellent model teachers across the city who are actually modifying the pacing and taking out some of the units and adding additional units to better support the students. So we're not veering away from the new curriculum. We want to make sure that we're not saying, well, it doesn't work and we just need to take it out, but how can we adjust it and give a longer runway for success.

But it was important for us to listen to our teachers and the UFT and to acknowledge the challenges and make those adjustments. We're confident now, Senator, with those adjustments that we've made -- that we are making -- that we will see more impact.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay. And the last question is you mentioned -- I think the CFO mentioned you are picking up the costs of some after-schools. Is that because they were not funded under the LEAPS program?

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Yup, that's correct. So that grant expired. And what we had to do was work with the state, who picked up 3 million of the cost. And the city picked up 5 million to support those schools who would have otherwise lost funding.

SENATOR MAYER:And in those schools does it cost the families to participate? Or is it --

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:No, it's free for the families.

SENATOR MAYER:It is free.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Yes.

SENATOR MAYER:But that's -- is that because you applied and you did not get the LEAPS funding that continued?

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:So the LEAP funding is actually allocated to CBOs, who then partner with our schools.

SENATOR MAYER:Yes.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:We didn't have the lists of the CBOs who would actually be awarded, so what we did was just provide the funding directly to the schools.

SENATOR MAYER:And what's the amount that you --

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:It's a total of 8 million. Again, the state picked up three and the city picked up five.

SENATOR MAYER:Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:(Mic off.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman De Los Santos.

ASSEMBLYMAN DE LOS SANTOS:Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Chancellor Aviles-Ramos, for your leadership and for, you know, stepping up during this challenging time that we're facing in our city and our state.

Community school I believe is a great model. In fact, I believe that every school in New York City should become a community school. Community schools and CBOs play a critical role in providing wraparound services that support students beyond the classroom, particularly in high-needs areas.

What is your take on the expansion of community schools?

In addition to that, what is the Department of Education currently doing to expand parental engagement?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:So we'll start with the community schools piece. I agree with you. I was a community school campus when I was a principal and greatly benefited from the resources. My dream would be to see every single school have a community school model. Unfortunately, the funding, the cost that is attached to that is exorbitant. And so we would need support to be able to make that happen.

What I will say is that we know there have been a number of issues. Partially it's that the initial expansion of community schools was under stimulus dollars. And when that expired, we then stepped up and we funded them again for another year. But again, that does cost a great deal of money.

So I'm going to pass it over to my deputy chancellor to talk a little bit more about the actual numbers, and then I'm happy to come back to your parent empowerment question.

ASSEMBLYMAN DE LOS SANTOS:Thank you.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:I will just say we have about 420 community schools in the city right now. A small amount of that money comes from the Foundation Aid set-aside, but most of that is now city funding that we are putting into those schools. We used federal dollars to expand; that went away, and we stepped up with city funding. But we have about 420 currently.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:And in terms of family empowerment, it is one of the reasons why it is one of my commitments. We've talked a lot about engagement, but when we empower families, we want to make sure that they're at the decision making table with us, talking about what are their children's best needs and how we can meet them.

And so we have our newly appointed deputy chancellor for family, community and student empowerment. We are working closely with our Division of School Leadership partners to make sure that we're strengthening the relationships between our CECs and our district superintendents, because we know that family empowerment does start there.

We are also working to create a program where we are training family leaders across the city on what are their resources, from knowing their rights to accessing resources across New York City, so that way they can train other families. And this includes the IEP process, getting your child evaluated. We want to make sure that some of these very difficult -- very difficult tasks that families face, that they understand step by step on how to do that work.

And I open it to the team if they want to add anything else.

ASSEMBLYMAN DE LOS SANTOS:Thank you.

The deputy chancellor alluded to the graduation rate being 83 percent. If we were to convert every school in New York City, would that number go up?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Brisport.

SENATOR BRISPORT:Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you, Chancellor. Appreciate you being here today. Welcome to Albany.

I have some questions about early childhood education, because we are in the midst of a statewide childcare shortage and Mayor Adams' budget proposal cuts $112 million from 3-K. News also recently broke that his administration is currently in the process of closing at least five childcare centers -- one of them is in my district -- despite high enrollment and demand for them.

So given the extreme need for additional childcare centers in New York City, not fewer, do you feel as though the Governor's budget proposal provides the city enough funding to regrow the childcare sector?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:We have been working very, very hard at making sure that we are rightsizing our early childhood program so that taxpayer dollars are actually funding seats for the right age groups in the locations that have the most need.

And I want to go directly to the question around the leases, the closures that you referenced, which was not an easy decision. But that was borne out of the exorbitant costs that we were paying for these leases, leases that are either expired or up for renewal. Those locations have been closed. There is a runway of approximately six months to be able to support the providers and the families, particularly the families finding seats in locations that are very, very close by.

But we do need to rightsize our seats. We do need to make sure that those seats are in places where there is need. In some of the cases where you mentioned one of the -- there were three criteria that we used to identify those locations, and one of them is underutilization. And so while some of the sites have 80, 90 kids, it's still under 95 percent of their utilization.

I'm actually going to pass it to our CFO to talk more about the dollars and cents, but I just wanted to lead with that opening. These are not easy conversations, Senator, and I really want to thank you for lifting them and I want us to work in partnership around some of these decisions. But I do want to be forthcoming and say that the work that it takes to rightsize these seats across New York City has been a challenge.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:So to answer your question, around 112 million.

We're very much still in the early process of our budget process, and so we -- essentially the money was put in, it was only put in for fiscal year '25. We are having ongoing conversations about having that funding baselined in our budget. So it doesn't mean that our commitment that's tied to that funding is actually being reduced. We just need to have the conversations with our partners at the city about baselining those funds in our budget.

SENATOR BRISPORT:Thank you.

And just with my last 15 seconds I do want to respectfully push back at Grand Street Settlement, one of the locations that is being rightsized. The CEO says that they are fully enrolled.

And I would also say -- I just do ask that you check, you know, rightsizing, that the centers have enough funding, enough staff to be fully enrolled.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Ra, ranker.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Thank you, Chancellor. Just a question with regard to Foundation Aid numbers for the city.

In particular you talked about, you know, expecting, under the current formula, $350 million additional. So that, I assume, is not necessarily because of the new measure but more so the update in the census numbers. Am I correct?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:It's the combination of the changes to poverty that the Governor proposed. So there's two separate changes, and the combo of those comes to that reduction.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Okay. And last year your predecessor talked about the overall enrollment numbers in New York City, and I believe he had told us, you know, after about five years of enrollment decline, you know, it had gone from I believe over a million to somewhere around 900,000, or maybe a little below that. That there was then, because of an influx of many migrant families, that that had started to tick the student population up once again.

Do you have updated numbers just in terms of what your enrollment numbers look like?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:You know, again, 3-K to 12, Assemblymember, is about 908,000. So we -- a year where we saw a slight uptick and then this year we saw basically it being flat.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Okay. Would it be fair to say that, though, under the current formula that that might drive additional Foundation Aid dollars to the city given that, you know, many of these are going to be English language learners and they're going to have -- you know, need additional resources under the formula?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Yes. So to the extent our enrollment stays stable -- since of course that's a core piece of the formula, and the English language learner piece, those both do input into how the current formula supports our students.

And just to touch on before, we did recommend last year updates to both the English learner and the students with disabilities weights within the formula because they actually don't keep up with the costs of actually providing those additional services you're talking about. But they are both there in the formula, yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Sure. And that was going to be the next piece. Obviously, you know, when we undertook this study -- and we've all had some time to digest it, but we all kind of were like, okay, if we pick and choose pieces of it, it may not create the most fair possible outcome.

And I know with regard certainly to special education costs, English language learners -- you know, if you can comment more comprehensively about those issues and how, you know, if we were doing maybe some form of a lot of the other recommendations, whether that would -- would your numbers look more like what you were expecting?

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:Yes. So of course it would depend how you all decide to implement those recommendations. And even Rockefeller had a number of different things.

But when we look at the costs of the services we're providing in our schools and the students we're enrolling, we do think one big one is change to regional costs in particular. It costs more to live in New York City, and that's also a metric in the formula that hasn't been updated in a long time and therefore hasn't kept up with the rising costs in the city, including the costs of our teachers, our schools.

So that regional cost piece is a big one for us. Students with disabilities, English learners -- thinking about how to increase and create a little more nuance around the weights the formula already includes for those students. We have disproportionate and growing numbers of English learners, as you flagged. So those are really important to us as well.

Students in temporary housing, as the Senator mentioned earlier, we've worked a weight for them into our formula so we can provide additional funding there. We think that would help as well. And the specifics would depend on the numbers you touched on.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Senator Sepúlvel-da. Sepúl-vee-da, excuse me.

SENATOR SEPÚLVEDA: Say that three times in a row.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Sepúlveda.

SENATOR SEPÚLVEDA: Good afternoon, Madam Chancellor. As a fellow Bronxite -- where you hail from -- as a fellow Latino, I am very proud to have you as the chancellor of the New York City school system.

But beyond that, your experience as a teacher, a principal, a deputy superintendent, an acting superintendent, a chief of staff -- I can't think of any person in the State of New York who's in a better position to handle our school system, our public school system than you. And I offer you my cooperation for everything you do for the kids in our school system.

But with that in mind, I want to know, as the chancellor, what are your priorities for the schools?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Senator, thank you for your ongoing support. Ever since I was a deputy superintendent, a superintendent in your district, we have had a great partnership, and I want to thank you for that.

My priorities quite simply are what I want for my own child as she's being educated in our public school system. I want access to an amazing instructional program. I want access to resources that are going to get her not only to, but through college. I want our children to be able to go to college confidently with the soft skills that they need to be successful in university but also beyond.

I myself, as a young person who made it to college, once I got there I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to manage my time. I didn't know how to manage my money. I didn't know how to study properly. I was taught to regurgitate facts and to take tests and to not think on my own.

And when I think about the -- when I think about the issues that plague education, it is because the system has been set up to create robotic, compliant children who then become adults. And then we say, here's the 21st century and we want you to think creatively and lead creatively. Well, how can we have those expectations if we do not think outside of the box?

And the work that we are doing with Future Ready schools, through our Pathways program, is so important. Because for many of our students -- not all of them, but many of them -- they have to negotiate between their basic needs and their aspirations. And so it is very hard for me to enjoy an enrichment program that's going to get me ready for the SAT or the ACT when I have to work and take care of my younger siblings or I have to help my family put food on the table.

Putting $10 million in wages in our students' pockets while they are in high school and saying, Here is a tangible, concrete career that is waiting for you if you complete this coursework, makes them go all the way. And that, to me, gives me pride in New York City Public Schools.

But what I will say is the foundation, the instructional foundation has to be wonderful as well. And with NYC Reads, it's step one, that implementation of that curriculum across New York City is important. But again, it goes back to the interventions and making sure that all students have access to that instruction.

Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR SEPÚLVEDA: If I had more time, I would ask you about the issue of mental health, but I'll catch you later.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Thank you, Chancellor, and your team.

I want to refer to one of the questions that was already answered where I -- I'm not exactly sure where we were going with this, the after-school program and the money that was cut. Your team answered that the families were getting this after-school for free. I've had families, the PTA president from at least two of my schools who are paying anywhere between 300 to 500 a week, and this is in a community where folks can't afford what is basically a car payment. So I'm trying to understand when we're saying that they're getting it for free and when I have families paying. So that's my first question.

And then my second question is the prior panel talked about the policy that has been distributed statewide about how schools should interact with ICE should they show up at their door. Your team has also discussed it as policy, that I actually believe that both policies would be in compliance with FERPA to ensure if this was a law enforcement agency.

But I think what people are failing to see is that it is a law enforcement agency possibly carrying a civil nature enforcement. Because if it is not a judicial order, we have a separate conversation. And so my question for that is, is this only based on regulation, interpretation of the law, or is there actual city or state law that dictates how your teachers and your principals should be acting?

And then the last is a comment. You know, in the era of possible ICE showing up to school in ICE raids, and uncertainty, I want you to consider how this would interact with the cellphone ban when it comes to implementing it.

Thank you.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Assemblywoman, thank you so much. And I actually remember personally working with you on the after school.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Oh, yes, thank you for that.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:And you're absolutely right, that there are pockets of places where it is not free. We are getting the details, so that way we can share that with everyone. I think it's -- that's many fewer cases, but nonetheless "few" still means too many.

So I just want to acknowledge that we appreciate your advocacy, because I do remember us working with your office on that.

And so to address your second question, I want to be clear that our policy remains intact. And you're absolutely right around -- you know, in terms of law. But our policy, I just want to reiterate for everyone that it has been imperative for us to train our principals and our families around that existing policy.

That being said, there is federal law that requires us not to admit law enforcement without a judicial warrant pursuant to the Fourth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. So the requirement is not specific to ICE, it is just the general responsibility of schools to ensure protection of their students' legal constitutional rights.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:And then my last 16 seconds, so it's interpretation by the city of existing federal law. It is not in state law, and it is not in city law, correct?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Correct.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Leroy Comrie.

SENATOR COMRIE:Thank you.

I want to echo Senator Sepúlveda. I had a chance to see you at Black Spectrum a couple of weeks ago; I was very impressed. I want to thank you for taking this on. And whatever I can do to be helpful, please count on me.

Three quick questions. IEPs, I understand you're drowning in issues with IEPs. Have you come up with a solution to deal with that? Because I know IEPs are starting to cost the Board of Education over -- I think I saw a report -- millions of dollars, because people are asking for being placed to other schools and creating a major problem.

Second question, specialized classes. For wood shop and tech and business management, are you seeing a drop off of teachers that are being able to teach those specialized classes? And what can you do to try to encourage people to come back, like music teachers? I've been requesting them to do more music in schools. How can we help you make that happen?

And the third question is a request. The STEAM program, that we don't have any STEAM schools in Queens. Councilmember Williams has come up with a plan. Speaker Adrienne Adams has a plan. We need all three schools. Also Superintendent {inaudible} has a plan. We don't have any STEAM schools in Queens. We're losing parents to the private schools or other schools because we don't have enough specialized programs in Queens.

Thank you.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you, Senator. And I want to thank you so much for your support, and it was great seeing you at the BE-U event the other night and the work that you're doing to support our relaunch of the Black Studies curriculum.

SENATOR COMRIE:Thank you.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:And so I want to -- I want to begin with the teacher recruitment piece. You mentioned -- I just want to be clear, the question is around recruiting for arts? Or are you saying for myriad license areas?

SENATOR COMRIE:For specialized areas: Arts, music, workshops, wood -- you know, those basic skills, things that we used to have and we're losing teachers in. How can we help restore that?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Yes, absolutely. And before I pass it over to first deputy chancellor to talk about some of the specifics in our teacher recruitment work, it is important that we have teachers who are invested in the communities -- not only in the licensing areas, but that they actually understand and appreciate the communities that they are going to teach in, and that children see people who look like them, speak like them. And so our teacher pipeline programs are recruiting more men of color in our system.

Our paraprofessional-to-teacher pipeline is also extremely important. These are people who are already working in schools, they know schools really well, nothing's shocking them, nothing's scaring them, and they're still happy to be there, so why not help them become teachers.

But there are a few other specific things that I just want to mention really quick before I pass it over to first deputy chancellor. Also our essential work to uplift the arts has been -- that was a priority that started under Chancellor David Banks, and that continues with me. We understand that for our students, arts is also a motivating factor that contributes to better attendance.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Jackson.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Thank you, Chair.

Hi, Chancellor, good to see you.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Hi, Assemblywoman.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:All right, so just on the whole cellphone ban -- I know that you've spoke enough about it. Those magnets are probably going to be able to be purchased from Glamazon. So we want to be mindful of those things. I worked in high schools just like you did, and we know how creative we can get when we want what we want.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:So I don't know if it's foolproof, but it's something to think about.

And I'm clear that you said that the staff should know about needing a judicial warrant to enter schools. And I'm just wondering, when it comes to ACS visits, are staff still on the same page? Does there need to be training? Do we need to pay for training? Because it seems to be problematic.

When I was a school social worker, no one knew what the guideline was, and they act as if they're police as well when they're entering our schools.

So is there any guidelines when ACS is coming into our schools to visit students?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Absolutely. So our Office of Community Schools, our chief, Flavia Puello-Perdomo, she has done a number of trainings both internally and I believe also with our CBOs around ACS.

And I mentioned our family navigator program that we're looking to launch, where we would train our family leaders. That's super-important.

I will just say, if I may, personally I know that there are some families who are reluctant to get information around these resources and their rights from schools, because they still see us as authoritative figures. And so that's why training parent leaders, these trusted validators in the community, to share this information and the guidelines around ACS, preventive services -- all the things that you and I have spoke about before -- is very important.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Got it. And what borough has the lowest graduation rate?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Which borough has the -- unfortunately, I cannot give you the most up-to-date data on that.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:You can get back to me.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I do know that historically our -- we know that the Bronx has had some very low graduation rates. And when you disaggregate that by student population, such as our multilingual learners and students with IEPs, that that does drop as well.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Now that we know that, and we know that community schools are an exorbitant cost, why is it that we're not spending more money creating community schools within our lowest-graduating-rate borough? Just to put that thought out there.

One of my schools, Urban Scholars Community School, lost their LEAP grant or 21st-Century -- one of them -- and they told the students to go to their neighboring community center, which there is not one. So I just want to know -- I know you said there was $8 million. How is that money maybe allocated -- how are people chosen? How can my schools go out and get it?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Is that it?

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:No, no, no.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:So for the loss of the funds from the LEAP grant, there were 57 schools that were partnering with CBOs that received funding from that, and so we gave it to those 57 schools.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Our school didn't get it. Okay, we'll chat. We didn't get it.

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS CFO SCOTT:Yes, please.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Okay. Senator Roxanne Persaud.

SENATOR PERSAUD:Thank you.

Thank you, Chancellor. It's great seeing you, and I know I'll see you again tomorrow.

I just have a couple of questions. And first is to touch on funding for public schools. I was at a school last week -- I go visit all my schools -- and the principal is dependent on her colleagues from other schools to help her with resources in our school, because her school is underfunded. Why is that -- how is it possible that a school is underfunded? She said she gets whatever allocation. By the time she's paid, you know, the teachers that she needs to keep there, she has no money. How is that possible?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:I'm happy to give you a few factors that contribute to that.

So one is there is an average teacher salary, and in schools that have managed to maintain their teachers for a very long period of time -- which isn't something we want them to be punished for, it's a great thing -- their average teacher salary is significantly higher.

The other thing is the most obvious: It is tied to enrollment. If a school has lower funding, it's because they are underenrolled. This administration has actually put more money into schools and districts than any other administration -- and I have lived that, because when I was a principal, that was not the case.

And so even with that, though, if the enrollment is dropping, then that means that schools will get lower funding. So just to give you a concrete example, I was one of those schools at first.

When I took over my school, my enrollment was declining very quickly, and I was on a shared campus and so my colleagues were kind enough to provide me with resources. They allowed me to pay part of a social worker so that way I had access to a social worker. I wouldn't have them five days a week, but if I had students in crisis, I was able to access the social worker.

Again, this was before the great work that our City Council did to make sure that there were more social workers in schools.

SENATOR PERSAUD:That being said, how do we change the formula? Because you want schools to retain teachers. You want to encourage them to remain in the school. So if you have a teacher staying there, you want to make sure you're paying them. But you also want to make sure you have the resources so that the students receive the best.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:You're a hundred percent right, Senator. And this is why we've been so vocal around the updating of the Foundation Aid formula. We need that additional money. And most importantly, we cannot sustain a cut.

The other thing is we are actively working with our schools to support with enrollment. We need to make sure that we're getting the message out there that New York City Public Schools is doing great things and trying our best to boost enrollment. So it's a multipronged approach to bringing kids back into New York City Public Schools, but also that funding is critical.

SENATOR PERSAUD:Okay. And with the few seconds I have left, we have to have a conversation about collocations, particularly with the charter schools and public schools that are collocating. We still have this inequity. We still have charter schools being given preferential -- where our public school students are not receiving the same kinds of treatment, the same kinds of resources that the charter schools are receiving in collocated public spaces.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Senator.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Nice to meet you. Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Commissioner -- Chancellor, I'm sorry, first, before I even get started, plus-one on the STEAM for Southeast Queens. We need our share of schools like that. We have brilliant students and they need that opportunity.

For me I'm going to pivot a little bit on my question earlier, so you were here. There are several thousand children in New York City with IESPs who have not been receiving mandated services during this recent school year. As it's been reported, the New York City DOE appeared to develop or establish new requirements that were not properly conveyed to parents and set an arbitrary June 1st deadline. Many parents were shockingly informed that their request for their child to get special-needs services were denied.

My question is, why were the new requirements not sent out or distributed or sort of given in advance? And what has the city done to make this mistake or change the approach that the kids are getting the services? As you say, it's about serving our children.

In addition, we're asking parents to sign a waiver that they won't sue the city if they accept the special-needs services at this time.

So what can we do about this? Because there are parents who are paying for these services out of pocket or the kids are not getting their services.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Assemblywoman, thank you so much for that question.

Before I pass it over to first deputy chancellor to really go into the IESP work that you're discussing, I do want to address quickly, because I didn't get to address it with Senator Comrie. We are very much enjoying working with Councilmember Williams and hearing about her ideas around a Queens STEAM Center. Obviously these are not easy things to launch, but we are in conversation with her and we're also excited about the revitalization of August Martin -- which are two separate things, but nonetheless bringing a lot of great stuff to Southeast Queens.

And I'll ask first deputy chancellor to talk about IESPs.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:But before you go there, so she's called -- you know, we had a conversation and she's pulling in us to help in this effort. So whatever you need from us, if it's a discussion about -- you can't have a borough that does not have their fair share.

And for a person who represents the Rockaway Peninsula, we never get our fair share on the peninsula, so I'm happy to have my kids on the peninsula feed into these Southeast Queens schools, because they do travel. So we have to address this inequity for our district.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you so much.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Yup. Willing to work with you in any way possible.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Fantastic, thank you.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:I've got to make a pitch, if we're talking about Southeastern Queens, for a new school that we're so happy is coming to Southeastern Queens, which is HBCU Prep, where our students will get to earn an associate's degree from Delaware State while they're in high school. So just want to say that -- I know it doesn't address the STEAM Center, but --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:I want one on the peninsula. Now that you have two that -- you know, all to yourself, you could put one on the peninsula because it's hard for our kids to get there, so they --

(Overtalk.)

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:We are -- and just to say I know we have some friends from the Bronx and we have a great STEAM Center in Brooklyn, my borough. But we are now focused on opening in the Bronx. Queens is next.

(Overtalk.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Queens is next.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Clock reset.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Hi. I believe I'm the last Senator, unless we have some three-minute follow-ups. So 10 minutes, thank you. But I won't need 10 minutes.

So, one, I already enjoyed our conversation earlier, and I know you're coming to my district to check one of my fascinating school campuses on Friday, so I'm looking forward to that.

People keep asking me what the city's policies right now on the Gifted & Talented programs are. I know there's always been some controversy around making sure that there's diversity and that they're in all communities. I know from my own experience I have several in elementary schools that are literally on the border of districts, one on the border of East Harlem and the Upper East Side. And I just want to say having the Gifted & Talented has made the whole school stronger because parents actually felt much more secure about sending their kids to a school that they were a little worried about in history, but now is really such a nice blending of the socioeconomics and racial differences between East Harlem and the Upper East Side. And I think it's really proved to be a plus for all the kids and what we should be aiming for.

So I'm just curious what current policy is, because I get a little confused.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Senator, thank you. Before I pass it over to first deputy chancellor to get into the details, I just want to say that in this administration our philosophy has really been to respond to the needs of the community.

So on top of working through the challenges with Gifted & Talented programs, also making sure that we are opening new schools with great programs -- as an example, Bronx and Brooklyn Bard, but also the HBCU school that is opening as well. So it's a combination of things that we are doing. But we respond to the needs of the community. And so that's one thing that I just want us to know before passing it to first deputy chancellor.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Thanks so much, Chancellor. And thank you, Senator. Good to see you.

So the first thing we did in this administration -- I think you alluded to it, was -- because we would see that there were G&T programs in some parts of the city but not every district in the city. And we heard from at least some parents -- not all parents, but some parents wanted to have a Gifted & Talented program close to home.

So the first thing we made sure is there was at least one Gifted & Talented program in each district. That was the first thing.

Beyond that, we expected our superintendents, who are really there, they work for the chancellor to make sure they are listening to the community and understanding the demands in the community. Not for us to make an ideological decision or a Tweet and say, We think there should be more of this and less than this. It's really about what are the families asking for. It's great to hear that you have some really successful Gifted & Talented programs in your district. Would love to talk to the superintendents who operate in your district to talk about how we can expand those.

And exactly right, when they work well, they don't just help the kids who are in that particular program, they really improve the quality of instruction and the rigor in the entire school. That's what we're looking for.

There are some schools that are adamant, they don't want Gifted & Talented programs. Terrific, that's great. You can have a wonderful school without Gifted & Talented. But we want to provide that option. And so we're seeing a steady increase in the number of these programs because what's happening is parents' voice is being filtered through the superintendents before them bringing it to us.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

I know I have one school that's an elementary school, plus Gifted & Talented, plus a huge number of migrant children. And visiting there, it all seems to be blending in a wonderful way for everyone. And the parents are supportive, the teachers are great, the principal's great. I'm happy to have you come take a look. It's on East 97th Street; you can probably look up the address easily. And it's really I think a model for so many other schools.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:It absolutely is. And if you go to places like Luperon High School, you will see that students who are English language learners are doing the absolute most rigorous, highest-level academic work. So this old idea that students who have particular challenges -- they have an IEP or what have you, or they're just learning English -- can't do gifted programs is incorrect. And I'm glad that you're seeing that myth go away in your district.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Great, thank you. I'm not going to give up -- I'm not going to use any more of my time because I will talk to the chancellor again on Friday.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Senator.

Assemblywoman Simon.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:Thank you.

Thank you, Chancellor, for your testimony and for speaking with me about -- and really engaging on some of these issues.

So I just want to say I'm very pleased to -- very encouraged by some of the additions, including additional coaching for teachers in rolling out NYC Reads. It's a big endeavor, and it wasn't going to happen overnight, and I'm glad to see that we're focusing on that and being realistic.

I also wanted to -- because I know this is also about libraries. We've talked about school libraries, both classroom libraries as well as within the schools. And that is the opportunity we have to get rid of some of these leveled readers, but also to bring in decodable texts. Right? That's going to be very aligned with NYC Reads as well as the science of reading and everything that we know we need to start doing differently.

So I want to encourage you, as you start refilling those books and making new purchases, start phasing out some of these things and bringing in decodable texts.

And also, because I'm now chairing Mental Health, is social workers in the schools. How many do we need? What would it take to provide the number of social workers in our schools to really adequately serve our students? And what might that cost?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you, Assemblywoman. And it was really great having our instructional conversation with you. I don't get to have those that often.

And so I just want to point out, though, data that I didn't have before and the team pulled for me. We actually did purchase $4 million worth of decodable books.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:Wonderful.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:So while we are investing in those decodable books, to Assemblyman Carroll's earlier point, we still need to do an overhaul of the ones that are still there, make sure they're not being used. Again, part of a phased inventory. So thank you for your patience, and thank you for pointing out.

And in terms of the social worker piece, again, we know that we have increased a great deal in the number of social workers over the last few years. And I'm going to pass it over to first deputy chancellor to tell you those numbers, and then what it would take in terms of expansion.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:I'll say right at the beginning, good to see you, Assemblymember. It's not enough, but just in terms of progress, over the last 10 years we've increased the number of school social workers by 70 percent. So we're making progress. Even in the last three years, we've increased it by over 7 percent. So we're continuing to see more social workers, which is a huge plus.

In terms of, you know, what is the total need, it's a great question. And I don't think we have that answer. And, you know, the cost is easier. We can certainly break down what it costs to, you know, pay a social worker. That is a known fact.

You know, what is the optimal number? I'm not sure. Part of -- you know, part of what I think bears being said here, principals have a lot of discretion. The chancellor was alluding to that from when she was a principal. We try to put money out to schools in a way that doesn't have strings attached. So they make these decisions very often about whether to put money towards a social worker.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Mitaynes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Thank you.

I'm Assemblywoman Marcela Mitaynes. I represent the 51st Assembly District.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Will you speak into the mic, please? I can't hear you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:I'm Assemblywoman Marcela Mitaynes, and I represent the 51st Assembly district, and that's South Brooklyn along the waterfront. I have a very large immigrant community, and up until even a couple of hours ago I'm still getting notices about possible ICE in our community.

But my question to the DOE is currently about employed teachers and support staff or other staff. Are any of those that are employed DACA recipients?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:So anyone who is working in New York City Public Schools, we make sure that they are legally authorized to work.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:So if, hypothetically, ICE or some other agent wanted to come and remove an employee or a volunteer or a parent?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Our policy is there to protect everyone in the school building. Without a judicial warrant, they cannot enter the building.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:What if they have a judicial warrant?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Then unfortunately they are permitted to enter.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:That's your stance on what you're going to do?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:That is what the policy dictates.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Right. And so we're going back to there's policy, but there's no law.

Can you talk about trauma-informed educational practices?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Absolutely. Trauma-informed practices, it's a host of strategies used to support students who are experiencing or have experienced traumatic events in their lives. Our -- we can get you the data on the number of teachers that have been trained. But it has been a priority for us to make sure that our teachers and our counselors are trained in trauma-informed care.

These include deescalation, coping mechanisms. This is also part of the work that I did when I was chief of staff and leading mindful practices through the UFT. We have a partnership with Mind Up where teachers and students are getting training on mindfulness. All of -- these are a host of practices that are both restorative in nature but also addressing trauma that children and, quite frankly, sometimes teachers bring into these spaces.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Would you identify ICE coming to a school to interview a child consistent with trauma-informed educational practices?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:It is not. And we know that with everything our families are experiencing and the fear that they are experiencing, as well as our educators, we know that we have -- there is a social/emotional component here where we need to make sure that we are attentive to their needs. We have plans to continue to offer trauma-informed care practice training to our staff, especially during this critical time.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:At a time where folks are very sensitive and we're seeing -- I'm getting calls from schools about the dropping numbers. To say that this isn't directly connected --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Assemblywoman.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:-- it feels like a disservice to the people that are bringing -- are giving you their children to take care of.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN MITAYNES:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman Pirozzolo.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:Good afternoon. Welcome, Chancellor. Thank you for being here.

I'm Sam Pirozzolo from Staten Island, and I'd like to say that this is my third hearing, but probably the first time I can recall that anyone's reached out to me on your behalf to ask if I had any questions that could possibly be answered. So I'd like to thank Brandon Bloomfield, who helps you with that. And he's a good guy; if we had more like him, it would certainly be good.

Unfortunately, I just thought of a question I really didn't -- I didn't discuss with him, so please don't take it the wrong way. But it would lead to the IESP, the I-E-S-P situation. I know that really wasn't you, that kind of got dropped in your lap. But we checked this morning to see what the current situation was, and apparently about notification I guess on a website, it says about 70 percent of parents have reenrolled in the program.

Would you have any numbers that might detail more Staten Island, District 31, more specifically?

And then what's being done for the parents who haven't signed the waiver yet?

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Thank you for working with us, Assemblymember, on this issue. And it is a tough issue.

We have been able to arrange services -- I'm not sure -- I want to make sure I understand your question correctly. I don't have Staten Island-specific numbers, but we'll get those for you right away.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:Great.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Overall, we've had about 80 percent, plus percent, of the families that weren't able to file the notice on time get services, get their P4 voucher, which we're pleased about. And hopefully that number will continue to go up citywide. So that's about 80-plus percent.

But we'll check and see what it is in District 31.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:Okay, great. And anytime you'd like to have a conversation about Gifted & Talented, that would be great.

FIRST DEP. CHANCELLOR WEISBERG:Oh, yes. Absolutely.

ASSEMBLYMAN PIROZZOLO:I'd certainly like to participate in that.

And I have to say, Chancellor, it was a bit of a breath of fresh air to hear what you said before about teaching students how to take standardized tests, just one question after another, and turning them into robots. My son was home-schooled all through middle school, and actually my daughter in her last three years of high school. And when we decided to return my son back into high school, all of his teachers came up to us during the PTA meeting -- not PTA, but through the visits for report cards -- and every one of them wanted to know where he went to school because of his level of knowledge of subjects and topics.

So just to say again, I mean, being diverse in your teaching will take care of taking the test. Because he still did well on his test, as so did my daughter.

So thank you for not, you know, being afraid to break away from that model. But I think the diversity in teaching, and not teaching to the test, is a very, very important thing. Thank you so much.

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you, Assemblymember.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Hooks, three minutes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN HOOKS:Hello. Thank you, Chancellor, for your testimony today.

So I have a real concern that parents of students in schools have. And I went to several schools in my district, and it seems to be the general concern for everyone. And the question I have is the Governor put new funding in the budget to support the universal school lunch and breakfast program, which is absolutely phenomenal. How are you assuring that the meals are healthy but not absent of quality, taste and appearance, to control the amount of waste from food being thrown away by the students? Or that parents have to still give money to their children for lunch because they do not like the food?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Thank you so much, Assemblymember, for that question. And as a parent of a New York City school student, she came to me on Friday and she said, I really love the PB&J, but you have to do something about the vegan nuggets.

(Laughter.)

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:And so we have done a ton of work. And before I pass it over to Deputy Chancellor Vadehra to talk about the details -- but there are a couple of pieces to this.

One is that we are not wasting food. That is so important. As someone who grew up with food insecurity issues herself, and not knowing where her next meal would come from, we pride ourselves on our Shared Table Initiative where food that can safely be repurposed and shared with families, connecting them to food pantries, is something that we've expanded across the state.

And we've also had taste tests with students themselves, and they give us feedback. I tell you, as much as you all give us very clear feedback, there is nothing like receiving feedback from students. It can be a little harsh sometimes. Your skin needs to be thick. But they are really guiding the menu for us. We're not all the way done, but that work has commenced and grown.

So I'm going to pass it to Deputy Chancellor Vadehra to talk more about it.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:I just took notes on her vegan nugget point in terms of taking immediate feedback.

So I do want to say one thing just broadly. We are excited for the Governor's proposal. It's also something we've been doing in New York City for years now. We already have universal free breakfast and lunch. We are serving roughly 800,000 meals a day across the system currently.

We do everything we can to take feedback, and we are continuing trying to get better. And we're happy to come do a visit with you to a school to hear directly from students.

We make an effort -- you know, every day there are multiple options available for students. We think that is important. We've taken some aggressive feedback on some of the vegan options, and we're continuing to work to improve those. We do do student taste tests. We do do student surveys. I spent 90 minutes yesterday with some student food advocates who were giving us very specific feedback on some of the specific menu options, but also on things like "How do you make sure we have the condiments, in case that's what we need?" So I will say we're in a constant feedback cycle there and are happy to take more.

The one other thing I will note, just because -- or I will not.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN HOOKS:I would like a survey.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Second round for Chair John Liu, three minutes.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks for taking all these questions, and thank you for thanking us for the questions. You're quite welcome.

You know, I don't know if this is going to be a question. You can respond to any of it. But, you know, the Department of Education or New York City Public Schools continues to say for the last two years that you're in compliance with the class-size reduction law, which is actually enshrined in the New York State Constitution, 46 percent at this point, even though the law requires 40 percent.

But the reality is that the department has done virtually nothing to achieve that. In fact, when we passed the legislation it was already at 58 percent compliance.

So there has been very little done, Chancellor. So I do have a question for you. And the question is, is it necessary to reduce class sizes in New York City? And do you consider the law an unfunded mandate?

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:Senator, I want to go back to the idea that we've done virtually nothing and respectfully disagree.

When we met earlier in my time in Albany a few weeks ago, one of the things that we pointed to is the work that we've done with UFT and CSA -- it was also part of my testimony -- in terms of giving schools an opportunity to submit proposals that would allow for them to make adjustments to meet the class-size mandate on their own.

SENATOR LIU:All right, so --

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR AVILES-RAMOS:That is incredibly important, Senator, because we know that when we give principals the autonomy to make the program shifts and the space shifts necessary to comply, it's better than us swooping in and doing those mandates. So that's one.

The second thing is you and I also discussed the need for new schools. And I know that the first deputy chancellor has that data in terms of the schools that we have already opened and the schools that we have, quite a few are in your district --

SENATOR LIU:It's reflected in the school construction plan. And I think you told me that the total amount offered to the 750 schools that have applied for this class-size reduction funding is about $80 million -- all right, how much was it, then? Dan is -- Dan's head's going to fall off.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:So -- so first of all, we put $200 million in last year dedicated to class size and other C4E purposes. We also asked all of our superintendents to make progress in their districts. We do think that's how we got to 46 percent. We don't think it was from doing nothing.

For this year we actually haven't put out a number in terms of what funding will be available to schools yet. We're in the possess of reviewing the 750-plus applications, as are our UFT and CSA partners. We are looking to put --

SENATOR LIU:All right, I'm running out of time here, so let me say that --

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:-- city and state funding in.

SENATOR LIU:-- two hundred, maybe $300 million is what the department's offering up. And the chancellor's saying it's going to cost $1.5 billion.

DEP. CHANCELLOR VADEHRA:That's what we offered up last year. That money is maintained in school budgets this year, and we expect to put in more for the 750.

SENATOR LIU:I will simply add that --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank -- thank you.

SENATOR LIU:I will simply add that the New York City Public Schools in Foundation Aid is getting $1.8 billion --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:I said thank you, Senator.

(Overtalk.)

SENATOR LIU:-- annually, more than the Adams administration -- than how much the schools got before the Adams administration.

Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Do not answer the question.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you, Senator Liu.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay, thank you, Senator Liu.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Chancellor. And thank you, staff of chancellor. This actually concludes this portion or this phase of the hearing.

UNIDENTIFIED ASSEMBLYMEMBER:Can I ask something?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:You're not on my list. You didn't get me -- sorry. Next time.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you. You're done.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Anyway, you're done. Thank you.

And so the next phase we're going into will consist of panels. There will be from four to seven individuals on a panel. Each person presenting will be limited to three minutes. All legislators will also be limited to three minutes. I really don't want to sound obnoxious and talk over people when the buzzer goes off, but we have 38 more individuals to present before us today.

So I will call the first panel up, and it consists of United Federation of Teachers, New York State United Teachers, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, and School Administrators Association of New York State.

Please take any conversations outside while the next panel gets set up. Ms. Pheffer and Mr. Carroll, I'm referring to you. And you're not listening to me, Ms. --

(Overtalk.)

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Bobby -- Bobby, take it outside.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Tell Stacey, come on.

(Laughter; off the record.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Before we start, my suggestion would be since we already have your written testimonies, rather than just read the testimony to us, summarize it and you can get more of your editorializations in. But we only have three minutes each, so -- how do you want to start?

(Inaudible.)

MS. PERSON:Well, good afternoon, it is great to be back here again testifying before all of you. I want to start by saying something that I don't think we celebrate enough in New York State. Great things are happening in New York State's public schools. Our schools are some of the best in the nation, and that is no accident. It is largely because of the commitment by many of the people in this room, and our educators, and all of the people in our school buildings who every day put our students first.

Our student population is one of the most diverse in the nation and has some of the highest needs. More than half of our students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and speak over 200 languages in New York City --

MR. MULGREW:Two hundred and thirty.

MS. PERSON:Two hundred and thirty.

But from leading the nation in advanced placement courses and scores to fostering creativity through innovative career and technical programs to closing the achievement gap to increasing graduation rates, we are succeeding.

I also want to say, looking at the Executive Budget, our support immediately for universal school meals and for the Governor's proposed distraction-free learning policy.

The thing that I want to focus on today is career and technical education. CTE programs are the future of our schools and our state workforce. These programs align hands-on experiential learning with workforce needs in fields from cybersecurity to healthcare to advanced manufacturing. It is no secret that kids love these programs, and they actually make them want to come to school.

But the funding formula for BOCES and for Special Services Aid, the category that funds these programs in the Big 5 school districts have not been updated since the early '90s. This caps instructor aid levels, limiting expansion of these programs. Every BOCES that I have visited has long waiting lists for programs like health careers, areas where we have severe workforce shortages in the state.

And by correcting and updating these funding formulas we can begin to address these needs and refocus us on the extremely successful program of Career and Technical Education.

I also want to mention Foundation Aid. We've begun the process of updating the formula. We need to continue to look at regional cost, how we are paying for English language learners. The current weighting is insufficient. It does not cover the breadth of services that our students require, and needs to be looked at as well.

I also want to mention the extreme needs of our students around mental health. Right now 94 percent of our districts have expanded the provision of services, and over the last two decades, we've seen the need for services more than double. We need to make sure that we're investing in providing those services because our kids are truly -- they truly need these services in order to be ready to learn.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

MR. MULGREW:Thank you. Thank you, everyone. My name is Michael Mulgrew. I'm the president of the United Federation of Teachers of New York City.

And I would like first to start with "Gung Hei Fat Choi" to you all, which if you don't know is Happy New Year. And we're happy that there's children across our state having this day off, but always we have to get our work done.

So I want to then be clear with everyone, because I heard some of the questions, and my phone is ringing off the hook constantly at this moment. We are doing everything, and we have clarified all of the policies to our school communities in terms of what needs to be done and what the process should be, if there is any, which we have no evidence that a single one has happened yet in terms of ICE trying to enter a school.

And we've sent out the state regulations, but we also sent it out in English so actually people could understand it. So they now have that.

I want to start with Foundation Aid. Foundation Aid is very important right now in New York City. You discussed class size. Foundation Aid is now directly tied to the class size law for New York City. And we appreciate what the Governor has done in the initial budget in terms of Foundation Aid, and we appreciate also that you added in -- not added in, but you updated the poverty index. But we need to update other indexes also because just updating that one has caused somewhat of an inequity in terms of Foundation Aid when it comes to New York City compared to the rest of the state. And I look forward to making that happen.

I also want to make you all aware that when you clarified the law last year we were very -- we were very serious about making sure it was followed. We have filed an official complaint with SED about OMB of New York City supplanted $10 million of education funding. We will come up here. Your money that you send for education needs to get to the children. It should not be supplanted by the local municipalities.

When it comes to the workforce issues we're all facing, we're facing them both in education and in healthcare. We're floundering, folks, just floundering. We have to come up with a better way, and we have to come up with better programs where we can attract and retain both educators and people who want to work in schools, as well as nurses. And with the shortages that we continue to have, especially with paraprofessionals and people in special education, it is now becoming a crisis and we need to get that fixed.

As Melinda also spoke to, the CTE component I want you all to understand that the teachers of this state were the ones who constructed the first microchip manufacturing curriculum, and that is being taught in parts of Syracuse as well as New York City. And it is already a certified program.

And I cannot stop to say if we're going to really do it with the healthcare -- with the workforce shortage, this is not going away. Every public-sector worker in the State of New York understands that Tier 6 with the age 63 is not helping us at all. And it needs to be fixed. No way teachers are going to stay, when they start at 21, to the age of 63. We need this fixed.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

MR. RUBIO:Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Henry Rubio. I am the president of the Council for School Supervisors and Administrators. And as many of you know, we represent 6500 in-service school administrators and about 11,000 retired school administrators from New York City, along with four conversion charters. And I also represent nearly 200 early childhood directors who are subsidized by New York City's Early Childhood Education Centers.

I'm here in partnership with our state affiliates, the School Administrators Association of New York State, and appreciate the opportunity to be here.

We're grateful for all that the Governor's proposals do for students, and we thank her for fully funding the Foundation Aid formula and for the robust conversations we've having the last couple of months due to the needed changes we all recognize.

We fully support the Governor's vision to achieve both universal childcare and universal school meals.

School leaders know the excessive use of cellphones can have harmful effects on children, and we support the Governor's efforts to limit the use of cellphones during school hours. And we will continue to work with you and her team to refine that legislation that would allow for some flexibility.

Student health and safety and well-being are the guiding priorities of our union members, and we commend the Governor for her proposal for investments in school-based health centers and additional investments in extended day and after-school programs, which we know are so important for our families.

However, we must do more before you finalize this budget, and we look forward to working collaboratively with each of you in the coming weeks to ensure that our schools have everything that they need.

And while we support the intention behind the Governor's proposed changes to the Foundation Aid formula, replacing the poverty factor will have a disproportionate impact on New York City schools and New York City children -- you've heard that many times today already -- without considering the other recommendations in the testimony that we submitted today, which includes weights for ELLs, special-needs students, and temporary housing, et cetera.

And let me be clear. CSA, I as the union president, fully support smaller class sizes, but far too many of our schools and districts don't have enough space, and the funding coming to New York City must reach the classroom. We must hold the system accountable, and it must reach the school and the classroom. Just remember that by 2028, New York City schools will need a billion dollars for construction, approximately 900 additional new teachers, and the additional supervisors to adequately support and supervise our newest colleagues joining the profession.

Now, safety remains a pressing issue for us. We've seen more violence, weapons, assaults in schools but mostly outside of schools in our communities. Every school needs an appointed assistant principal to ensure proper safety, proper staffing, and support for both students and teachers alike. So we urge you all to support S1396 and A2605, legislation that requires an appointed assistant principal for the issues of safety in every school.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Happy New Year, and Happy Lunar New Year.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

MS. GALLAGHER:Honorable Chairs and distinguished colleagues, I'm Cynthia Gallagher, and I'm representing the school administrators of New York State. I would like to highlight six particular areas of the Governor's budget as a response of our 22,000 members and 8,000 retirees.

First, the Foundation Aid amount, the cornerstone of the Foundation Aid formula, needs to reflect the scope and amount of work that schools are doing currently. Certainly the amount of work and the type of work that our school districts are required to do to meet the needs of students is not the same as when the formula was crafted in 2007.

Secondly, in regards to disruption-free zones, aka cellphone policy, SAANYS last week sent out a survey to all of our members, and we had a very robust response. Seventy percent of our members responded back that they did in fact support a cellphone policy that limited the use of cellphones or other internet-enabled devices, but 70 percent also said that they supported a policy that would provide local discretion as to the policy and the implementation. Seventy percent said that they already had cellphone policies, and 50 percent said that that would change the best practices and policies that they already felt were working for their school climate.

Third, the salary cap waiver needs to be extended. The shortage in many areas has continued to be acute, even more so than last year, and the retirees fill positions in a way that the current pool of candidates does not.

Fourth, COLA. Our retirees need to have pensions that keep pace with accelerating costs. It is important for their own well-being, but it is also important to acknowledge the roles that they play in many of our young families. They often provide the daycare -- and in fact, about 22 percent nationally of retirees provide that daycare -- over $10,000 for their families, direct monetary support, and many are head of households for their grandchildren.

Fifth, the Governor introduced the concept of universal daycare. It will be important to assure that the promise of universal pre-K is not lost and that we do not continue to exacerbate an already fragmented early childhood system.

And lastly, we would respectfully request that there be additional money for professional development for our building administrators. In the current budget there is money for our teachers to receive such professional development, and we would likewise like to see some additional funding go to our leaders.

Thank you very much for your time, and I'm sure we will be entertaining your questions as we go.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Mr. Magnarelli?

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Again, I'd like to say thank you all for being here. I appreciate it. I know everybody up here appreciates your testimony and your being here.

Just a general question. My -- you know, I'm from Syracuse, okay? So my mindset is what's happening in the Syracuse area, not only the Syracuse City School District, but the districts around it. The one thing that I hear that most people -- and I don't say just students or parents, but also teachers and everybody has a concern about, is safety in the schools. Okay? It's kind of like I don't understand how we can have schools function if in fact they are not safe. Okay?

And this does not mean only making sure there aren't guns there, but just the protocols and what is needed to make sure that students aren't in fights with students, that other people aren't getting into the school. Just had a news article yesterday, a woman was -- pled to assaulting a teacher and sending the teacher to the hospital, and now is going to be serving two years in jail, which I don't know how that helps her or her family at all.

But, you know, the bottom line is people are concerned about safety. Can somebody talk to me about your thoughts -- not just more money, but what are we going to do about that?

MS. PERSON:Well, I can say it was just last year that the Workplace Violence Prevention Act was passed by this body, by both houses, and signed by the Governor, to finally include schools as a workplace that would be protected and would be able to bring in the Department of Labor when we believe that there was a workplace violence concern.

And that law has been slowly beginning to be implemented, so we are hopeful that it is going to make a difference in our school buildings. But what it has done already is given our members, working every day in our school buildings, the opportunity to bring to their administration concerns around staffing levels, which are often a challenge when there are training problems, where people have not received the training necessary to do their jobs, and when there are compliance issues, when a student is being promised a certain level of service and that student is not getting that level of service and care.

So we hope that this law will begin to make a difference and put a dent in the safety issue that you're describing.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:I have some more questions, but I think I ran out of time.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:You certainly did.

Senate?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Senator Shelley Mayer.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

First is a question on CTE -- Melinda, really for you particularly. As I think you know, the Senate one-house last year -- and in fact the last few years that I've been here, we have really tried to invest more significantly. And the Governor doesn't have anything additional for CTE in the budget this year. Have you engaged in conversations with the Governor's office to impress upon them the importance of CTE both for job development and workforce development generally, and as an alternative to sort of college-driven requirements on students?

MS. PERSON:Yes, we have been in regular conversation with the Governor's office about this issue. In particular, given her and her administration's commitment to the work we've done already with Micron, we know that she recognizes the importance of this work. I think there has historically been a resistance to making other adjustments to these formulas because of outyear costs, et cetera. But I think this is the year that we are going to be able to get it done.

SENATOR MAYER:Well, I'm glad to hear that, but I would just say Micron is not the only game in town. And for so many districts, including the City of New York, you know, the opportunity to have jobs in their communities matters. And I hope you can change that.

The other is on the mental health front, for all of you, we fought to get the RECOVS money allocated. Most of it has gone out the door. Have you see any improvement in mental health services within your schools as a result of the funds?

MR. MULGREW:I can say that yes, we have. We've also seen a massive increase, thankfully, we still don't have enough social workers and psychologists being in the schools themselves. We understand there was a tsunami headed at us. We had a problem, we had a crisis before COVID and after COVID, clearly, we knew a greater crisis was headed at us.

The social workers and psychologists inside of the schools have really done a phenomenal job, but there's always more that needs to be done. We also need to streamline their paperwork.

SENATOR MAYER:Yup.

MR. MULGREW:The paperwork is insane. A lot of it is redundant, it doesn't need to be there. They are constantly saying, We are clinicians, that means we want to work with our patient. We don't want to spend more than 50 percent of our work time on a computer clicking all of these different forms that need to be done.

So I would appreciate if the state looked at that, because we are -- it's real simple. This is their labor. If you choose to waste -- have them spending more than half of their time doing things that are not what you really hired them for, then we need to look at that.

MS. GALLAGHER:If I could add --

SENATOR MAYER:Yeah, go ahead.

MS. GALLAGHER:For our building administrators this is the third year in a row where mental health remains their number-one priority. So yes, we are appreciative of the mental health funding, but no, there's much more. Thank you.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblymember Carroll.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Thank you, Chair Pretlow.

And thank you for your testimony.

In last year's budget the Governor allocated $10 million to a back-to-basics professional development program. Can anyone tell me if any teacher has received any professional development because of that $10 million allocation?

MS. PERSON:Yes, I can speak to that.

To be clear, the law required us to collaborate with the State Education Department in the creation of this professional learning program. And we've been working very well with the department, but the department just gave us in January the final instructional practices guidance that we needed.

So we have been beta testing our course and have invested significantly. So far we have not received a dollar yet from the state. So just mind you, that 10 million hasn't actually been given to us.

And I also want to note --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:So understood that it's --

MS. PERSON:-- that there have been --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:I only have two minutes. It's no one has gotten it yet. Why?

MS. PERSON:Oh, no, I'm not done. There are thousands of members have received the training through beta testing at our expense, and through the New York City Teacher Centers.

MR. MULGREW:Correct.

MS. PERSON:So the training is being delivered at our cost.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Understood.

When do you plan to finish, then, the professional learning program?

MS. PERSON:The course is ready to run. We have several hundred people enrolled in the course right now. We are training the entire Niagara Falls School District this month. And we are ready to launch completely as soon as it gets state approval.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:And how many hours is the course?

MS. PERSON:It's a 25-hour course.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Fantastic. Thank you so much.

MS. PERSON:You're welcome.

MS. GALLAGHER:And if I may, this is an extensive effort, as you know, Assemblyman. When we talk to our principals, there was funding last year for the teachers in that $10 million but nothing really for building administrators, who are the ones to make sure that that program is sustained. And it is a massive schoolwide effort to do that kind of program, so --

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:I would love to give you more money to do more professional learning in the science of reading. So please ask, and you shall receive.

MR. MULGREW:I just want to be clear, because we're also heavily involved in this. We appreciate what you just said, but nobody's given us any money. We've actually been paying for all the instructors out of our own budgets. Let me clear: No one has given us any money. We have paid for all of these instructors out of our own budgets.

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Presumably you will be eventually reimbursed by the State of New York.

MR. MULGREW:Well, who knows these days? I mean, anything could happen.

(Laughter.)

ASSEMBLYMAN CARROLL:Are we that derelict as -- thank you.

MR. MULGREW:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Let's see.

We have Senator Liu first.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all for your continuing leadership in education.

Henry, good to see you. The chancellor before just -- not too long ago testified that all the principals know what to do in case somebody rings the doorbell for their school. Is that true?

MR. RUBIO:I think the chancellor spoke accurately in that there were two webinars that principals were invited to.

We had urged to provide principals with more training than that. Picking two random days for 1700 principals and an additional 3500 or so assistant principals, who are the right and left hand of principals, is not going to be enough.

And I think that her team is going to respond. We asked that they be continuing training during the month of January and February. Every January and February principals are mandated to have one professional development meeting with their superintendents. So they're a captive audience, and that would be the perfect time to both go to the training, ask those pertinent questions, and make sure that you have everyone.

So yes, they've been invited to professional development. I don't think everyone has actually participated yet. But I think we're working on a plan to make sure we get there.

My team specifically is -- like Mike, was ringing off the hook constantly all day long on this one issue. School leaders are concerned. We wake up every day and the number-one thing we think about is our child safety. Parents are dropping them off to us; we want to make sure they're safe. So we're working with the department to make sure we can get that done.

SENATOR LIU:And the department is working with you on that to make sure everything gets the proper training and guidance.

MR. RUBIO:Yes. I have to say that we flagged this before the election, and they came to the table. And we wanted to make sure that principals had clear guidance. We're not lawyers. But we got clear instructions about what to do if non-local law enforcement came to the school. And we have that, but we've just got to make sure it's communicated widely to everyone.

SENATOR LIU:Okay, thank you.

And hey, Michael, what's up?

MR. MULGREW:Hey, how are you, John?

SENATOR LIU:All right.

MR. MULGREW:Happy New Year.

SENATOR LIU:I feel bad -- yeah, thanks for the Happy New Year. I felt bad that I didn't have a chance to give the chancellor and her team a full opportunity to respond on the class size issue.

But are the teachers generally happy with what the city's doing to reduce class sizes?

MR. MULGREW:Let me be clear. This administration for the first two years after this law -- and this is why what you did was so important last year -- they definitely were not what you would call a motivated group during -- about lowering the class sizes of New York City.

What you did last year made a significant impact. It wasn't an "if." It wasn't a "if you choose to." And that was all taken away. It was -- those words were added: New York City must. And that was it.

So since then, we've seen this. And it was -- over 750 schools did apply once we did the training. The principals needed to be assured that the money was actually going to get to the school and it would be recurring. And I understand why they didn't believe that that would happen until we had it clarified in the law. And once that happened, the applications started flying in.

Thank you.

SENATOR LIU:Thank you.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Assembly.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Smith.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Thank you, Chair.

And good to see everyone.

I want to spend some time talking about cellphones and distraction-free learning. I know it's been an initiative for NYSUT and UFT and everyone to bring this to light. Teachers and people who work in the classroom have been talking about this for many years, what can be done. A lot of schools across the state are taking actions.

Do you feel that so far what has been proposed, is that -- you know, the funding, $13 million, does that satisfy what you're hearing in the classrooms? Or can we build on that? What are your thoughts?

MR. MULGREW:We won't know till the applications come in, because some schools, there are some plans that schools can follow that won't require additional funding. But not all schools will be able to do that. So we won't know until the applications themselves come in.

And remember for us, this is not -- this is something that is much more serious. I mean, it's spoken about in a very light way at times, but since we now have so much medical documentation and research that this is actually harming the mental wellness of our students -- we are educators. Once we get that, this shouldn't be a debate to us. This is harming our students. We're all screwed, we're done.

(Laughter.)

MR. MULGREW:Okay? But we have to be able to help them get to a better place. And I can tell you, every school that has done this, it's the same process. We have parents who are against it at times, we have students who are adamantly against it. Once you have it put into place, it's also uniform -- whether it's in upstate New York, it's in central Brooklyn, it's in Staten Island or it's in the Bronx -- the students after a year say, I don't want the cellphones back. And life is better.

MR. RUBIO:If I can jump in, I know there was some conversation -- I can't remember from who -- this morning. I think for us it's really important for school leaders to know that this is going to be a process for us to engage students and staff and get by in an understanding that the science is already there, the data is already there, and come to a place where, you know, the cellphone is not using our children but actually teaching -- and as a father of four, how do we effectively use this as a tool and not that our children are tools, right?

And so that's part of the flexibility we want, especially depending on school level. We might want some more discretion at the high school level, perhaps, where kids are going to -- they're going to use these -- you heard the chancellor say they're going to use this right after 3:15 or 4 o'clock. Right? So how do you use it effectively and efficiently after that?

I think Melissa and I have had many conversations around the cost. I'm seriously concerned about the cost and not being an unfunded mandate for schools. We're talking about $30 per pouch if we go that way. I think that is the way I would prefer to go as well.

And there's a human capital cost, I think, to this as well that we need to consider as well. So I really appreciate that question, Assemblyman.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Yeah, I agree with you on the science part. You're talking about the mental health of our students, the bullying aspect. Now, again, we can't control what happens after school hours, although your members are often pointed to as some obligation, you know, that you may have them for 40 minutes a day but that they control what goes on. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senator?

MR. MULGREW:Thank you for that recognition.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Next is Senator Murray.

SENATOR MURRAY:Thank you, Chairwoman. And thank you.

I'm going to kind of piggyback on Assemblyman Smith in a second, but I want to first start by saying thank you in particular to Melinda for all of the effort towards the universal healthy meals. That is so very important, so thank you. And thank you all for being advocates there and pushing so hard to get that done.

I also couldn't agree with you more on the Tier 6. Couldn't agree with you more on that. It is absolutely hurting hiring, retention, recruitment --

(Applause from panel.)

SENATOR MURRAY:Agreed.

And then also the CTE, the importance of that. We must continue to invest in this, because that is the future. These jobs are our future.

So I also agree with the cellphone ban or distraction-free, whatever you want to call it. But I do -- I've been getting questions, and that's where I'm going to talk about the cost. So you have some that are saying, Is 13.5 million enough? Others are saying, Why do we need 13.5 million to put a policy in place? Can you kind of elaborate on what the money will go for? How will that be used?

MS. PERSON:I can say that right now there are a variety of different policies in place that are working. In some places they are able to do things simply saying: All kids must keep their phone for the entire duration of the school day in their locker. Right? And so that might work in one particular setting.

In other places, they don't have lockers. Right? In other buildings. And I think that's why this proposal includes local discretion with regard to people deciding what works for our community, what works for our school.

What is not -- where there isn't discretion is that the Governor and others are saying right now we are saying it is a priority for us to protect the mental health of our students for seven hours a day, and that during that time they're going to be distraction-free where they will not be exposed to gaming, to social media, to all the other things that take them away from the reason that they're at school in the first place, which is to learn.

SENATOR MURRAY:Right. Would you say this is kind of just -- the 13.5 million, is this just kind of a starting-point gauge to say we think this is what, but it could be adjusted later? Up or down.

MS. GALLAGHER:We've heard from our members a concern, though, that this would be just the initial funding, and what would happen in consecutive years when such a policy is fully implemented.

So there is concern by our building administrators as to the continuity of funding.

MR. MULGREW:And it comes down to actually grade levels are very important here. Elementary schools, they basically -- the student just puts -- they just walk in and they pop it into a little pocket that's hanging on a door. And it's very simple.

You can imagine that's not going to be that simple with middle schools and high schools. So if we have lockers, we can get them into lockers. If not, then we're talking about the pouches. That I do -- I do believe that there is now a second company. So if there's two companies, we're not paying $38 for a pouch.

SENATOR MURRAY:Right. Right.

MR. MULGREW:All school districts should say no. And I would band together multiple school districts -- multiple school districts should band together to say, Unh-unh, give us a better price.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblyman Ra.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:Thank you.

So yes, on the same topic, that was my question. And you just mentioned because somebody gave me the example yesterday of, you know, some type of thing hanging on the door that has a bunch of, you know, basically, I don't know, it's like a shoe rack you have on the door, you can put --

MR. RUBIO:Exactly.

ASSEMBLYMAN RA:So my question basically is this proposal as written, do you feel it has enough flexibility so that if a district is doing something like that and it's working, they'll be able to continue to do that?

MS. GALLAGHER:We do not. Our members were pretty strong in their opinions that the idea of a bell-to-bell-only statewide policy doesn't allow for discretion for schools who have layered it, as Michael said, elementary, secondary, middle school, for juniors, for seniors who are going to be using that six months into their freshman year.

MR. RUBIO:The reality is that, you know, there are instances -- my wife's a teacher as well, where she wants her students in high school to use the device for instructional purposes in some way, right? At other times, you don't want it; it's a distraction.

So there's got to be some flexibility there, and prioritizing, again, our students' mental health and funding it.

MS. PERSON:The proposal as drafted does include flexibility for the use of phones for instructional purposes, for translation services, for -- if a child is monitoring their insulin. And we believe that it makes sense to give educators and principals and districts the flexibility to say, everybody can use their phone for this purpose if they need to.

I think the important thing about the bell-to-bell is that it includes time passing in the hallways, it includes study hall, it includes lunch hour. And at first I thought, you know, this is not our concern, what happens in the lunchroom per se, because we really care about instructional minutes, our time with our kids to teach. But what the research has shown is that that time in the hallway, that time in the lunchroom, is critical developmental learning for our students. That is where they learn to be together, to communicate, to have human connection, to look people in the eye. Right?

And our students aren't getting that right now. Because in the hallways of a school, go visit a school, they're all starting down at their phone in the hall. They are in the lunchroom not talking to each other. This is not okay. It's not okay. And the bell-to-bell policy is going to fix this.

MR. MULGREW:And before -- and I understand and absolutely agree with the parents' concern on their ability to get in touch with their child.

But when -- we did have these policies when you were all in school.

(Laughter.)

MR. MULGREW:Okay? So let's just be realistic about this. And, you know, I don't want the distraction. Remember, we are the only state right now with a law on the books that says no predatory algorithms for minors. We're the only state that has it. And I think this says even more if we move this forward. Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN SMITH:Thanks.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Bynoe.

SENATOR BYNOE:Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon to the panel.

MR. MULGREW:Good afternoon.

SENATOR BYNOE:I'm Siela Bynoe, hailing from Nassau County's 6th Senate District. And it's home to communities like Westbury, Hempstead, Roosevelt, Freeport, Baldwin. And it's a community where there's a proliferation of charter schools. And those communities, school communities, are sending upwards of $120 million to charter schools in this moment. And they're projected to send upwards of 140 million in the coming year.

So I understand, parents wanted alternatives and options, and we respect that. And what I'm seeking is to hear from you today as I think we need to move forward in finding some level of a balance where public schools and these charter schools that exist can coexist without creating a disparate impact on the public school education.

And so this district, as I already stated, is oversaturated and there's yet another school, charter school, scheduled to come in that was just approved by --

MR. MULGREW:SUNY.

SENATOR BYNOE:-- SUNY -- thank you. Not State Education Department, by SUNY.

MR. MULGREW:Of course.

SENATOR BYNOE:And so I'd like to get your thoughts and hear from you directly on the impacts that school communities, public school communities, are having as a reality of all of this funding leaving the school district in terms of how it's impacting programs, how it's impacting, you know, the public educators and the like.

Thank you.

MS. GALLAGHER:Some of the concerns, as you've heard today, I would say were reflected in the building administrators' position, and that is in terms of the migratory issue of some of the students coming back and forth between charter schools into public schools.

The other piece of it is the accountability. Many of our members will talk to us about how there needs to be the same accountability in charter schools as there are for the public schools. That is important for our membership.

MS. PERSON:And I would say the saturation issue is a particular problem. We've supported legislation that would cap saturation at 5 percent of any given district, sponsored by Senator Mayer.

When a district has more than 5 percent of their kids and loses more than 5 percent of their funding to a charter school, it's destabilizing for the district. It's destabilizing for the community. And the current funding structure does not account for that loss in a way that does -- that leaves the public school district whole.

And so addressing that saturation is critically important, as well as the transparency issues, the lack of a public vote on the creation of new charter schools, and we also -- I'm sorry.

(Buzzer sounding; laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Cruz.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Thank you for being here today. As a Tier 6er myself and having many of your members who are in the same boat, I'll be fighting right along with you to make sure this changes.

MR. MULGREW:Thank you.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Completely different topic, but it impacts your schools. The implementation of our decriminalization of cannabis, and licensing, has impacted some of your schools because there is a loophole in the law that allows for some of these locations to be in or near schools that happened to not be completely a building that is just a school. So if you happen to have a school that has partially some sort of other entity, they actually can put it within the 500 feet.

So I'm going to come to you -- this is a heads up saying my colleagues and I are working to close that loophole. We will be coming to you. It's not that many schools, but some of them are in my district, so we'll be coming to you for official support on this. Again, completely unrelated, but just a heads up.

Mr. Mulgrew, thank you for your statement earlier today on UFT's position on the enforcement of civil immigration law as well as your public statement earlier in the week. When you were speaking about it, I saw several of your colleagues nodding in agreement, and I suspect that you all feel the same way.

A public statement often goes a long way for your members. I hear from you, Henry, that there is training taking place for the administration, but have any of you also made public statements that your members are to follow these regulations and that this is the stance of the union? Because leadership at a time like this is extremely key. Thank you.

MR. MULGREW:For us at the UFT, we sent out specific guidelines, state guidelines on Friday. And yesterday I sent out what I call the break it down so everybody can understand it very simply: Ding-dong, who are you, do you have a warrant? Let me see it. Send it to the lawyer. Is it an administrative ICE warrant? Thank you, you can't come in. Have a nice day.

Ding-dong. You have a warrant? I have a judicial warrant. Send that to the lawyers right away, make sure you check that. Those are not easy to get, and there are criteria around them.

So I want to be clear, when somebody says to us, Well, what happens if they show up with a judicial warrant? That's a whole different level for them to get. They're very rare, especially in -- when -- they are very rare when it comes to entering a school building. Because there has to be violence or possibility of real violence attached to it.

So I've sent that out to my members. Usually once I send it out to my members it goes public. But I understand that -- yes, whatever else we need to do on this. Because we need to quell the constant anxiety that we're dealing with right now. We have to get these children back to school. There was --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:I don't want to interrupt, but I know we only have 10 seconds. I'd love to know if everybody else has done what you were doing. Thank you.

MR. RUBIO:On my end, again a lot of anxiety and so actually it's funny you asked, I authorized a statement going out tomorrow.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN CRUZ:Thank you.

MR. RUBIO:To my members.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Tom O'Mara.

SENATOR O'MARA:Good afternoon. Thank you all for being with us.

President Person, thank you for starting out strong on CTE. Certainly a strong supporter of that. And interested in your thoughts on working more in conjunction with our community colleges to start the CTE at K through 12 and to continue on for more expertise or a higher level after Grade 12.

What do you think is where we are right now, and working? And this is open for anybody, but I'll start with you, Melinda, on that end. How are we working in that cooperation with that next level to community colleges?

MS. PERSON:There are a number of collaborations that already exist between the public schools and our community colleges with regard to career and technical education programs. There are a lot of dual enrollment programs that currently exist. We can always do more and increase those partnerships. But it is really important that we align the programs that we are doing in high school with the opportunities that kids are going to have in higher education as well.

MR. MULGREW:When I said before that the teachers of the State of New York designed the curriculum for microchip manufacturing, that's where CTE starts. They didn't do it on their own, they did it by working with the industry itself, between the different microchip manufacturing entities that we have in the state.

The teachers then can turn it into curriculum when they are actual curriculum developers. That has to go through the community colleges. It cannot be that, Oh, we already have an established program and this is what we want to continue to use. No, it has to be based off what the industry itself wants. That's how you actually come to a real economic development.

I just got back, I was two days in Zurich with them in Switzerland, because they have this best -- the best practices on this. And they were very clear, they knew about what was going on in New York State, they knew about CTE. They said, But around your country -- and you need to do more of this -- actually the skills that you're training people to do have to be aligned to the industry. They cannot be aligned to what educators think, they cannot be aligned to things that have nothing to do with what we want from the industry.

So it's a constant struggle, because for years we tried to develop these programs and thankfully the business side is much more open to doing this. And I'm going to say this as an educator, educators have been very reluctant to really go into this. But you're seeing the leadership here saying we have to go there. Graduation rates are higher, they go to college at a higher rate and graduate at a higher rate. But we need to do more, and we need to fast-track it.

MR. RUBIO:I'll turn it over just to say that the vast majority of our kids in CTE in New York City are leading and graduating with industry certification.

MS. GALLAGHER:It's a priority whose time has come, like Melinda said, especially as we look towards the graduation measure and issues that State Ed is doing, and it's a pathway coming up.

SENATOR O'MARA:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Good afternoon.

So I'm Tier 4, and I don't know what the problem is here today.

(Laughter.)

MR. MULGREW:Tier 4 will help Tier 6 like Tier 1 helped you get better Tier 4.

(Laughter.)

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:And you know, as a champion to change this. So, you know, recruitment and retention is a priority for the committee, as chair of Government Employees.

And we are going to of course attempt to try and change the other parts of Tier 6, but what else can we do? If we take that out of the mix, what creative ideas are there out there that we could work with you, either recruiting from other states or keep, you know, having folks take on a career?

As a former paraprofessional who never wanted to do that but did it out of necessity to raise my kids and have health benefits, I really found it amazing and probably would have changed, maybe, when I was in college knowing what being an educator was like, working with special-needs children all day long. I never thought to be a teacher because I don't want to teach, I like that part of the responsibility.

So what could we do more? And what -- from your expertise, what could we do more for that recruitment and retention?

MS. GALLAGHER:For retention, at least for the building administrators, one of the --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Say that again? I'm sorry.

MS. GALLAGHER:I'm sorry. For the shortage in retention of building principals, much of it already rests with our mentorship programs and the way that we're conducting our professional development once those folks get into the profession. We want to maintain and make sure that they're staying. And the same would be for our pipeline of our teachers coming through.

Very few, when you go down through the hallways of a school, really are aspiring to be building principals. So ours is just a little bit different.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Why are they leaving? So we're not getting the retention on the principals? Like why are they leaving?

MR. RUBIO:I would say, at least for New York City, it's burnout.

MR. MULGREW:Yeah, burnout, yup.

MR. RUBIO:It's a burnout issue. It's just the job is not what it was years ago. And they're just leaving the profession before or leaving the city entirely. And once they hit their -- you know, November 18th is my 55th birthday. Before, a principal would stay and finish the school year. Now, they're gone on the next day: I can't take another day.

And so our professional development assets and our testimony provides how do we become more effective school leaders, how do we create a pipeline of teachers that become assistant principals, assistant principals that are going to become principals, to lead the system? And with that constant turnover, no matter what reading program we develop, no matter what kind of curriculum, the constant turnover is just really hurting the system.

I did some legislation a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember which union it was pushing, about if you're eligible to retire and this is just me -- not to brief anybody on this, but if you're eligible to retire, they know that if they die in service, they lose their pension. Right? Versus if you die in service you get three and a half times your salary. If we make a change there, some people might stay a little bit longer if I knew that my family was not going to be harmed by that.

Just something to consider as you're talking about it. I think you're aware of it.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:We're going to have a big discussion on that. Yup.

MR. MULGREW:Yup, it's just -- and we have to look at the people in our profession who are at the low wages, about how we have to fix that. Pattern bargaining has been a disservice to our low-wage workers for years. And for municipalities -- here we go, ding-dong.

(Buzzer sounding; laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Senate?

MR. RUBIO:But if I could just say, we're going to have to pay a premium if we want people to work in person. That's just the reality.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you all. Thank you and your members for the amazing work you do for all our children, sincerely.

So I don't want to ask about the dollars and cents, and I'm not asking about the immigration response, because I'm so glad with what you already said. But I know all of us are in total panic about the next thing that might be coming out of Washington affecting our lives.

So I know you talk to people all over the country in education. What are you all worried about from a policy perspective next that might hit us?

MR. MULGREW:Tying very essential programs to federal money. That is our biggest worry for us in this industry. And yesterday I'm sure some of you are aware, yesterday was a bit of a rocky day. Forget about the grants program, the Medicaid portal went down, all that was -- payments were being stopped to states.

The idea that during the campaign we constantly heard about IDEA will become a block grant program. We are -- the lawyers, multiple states are ready to react to all of this. We're quite sure we can win that. And all the title programs at the same time, block grants. But it's more about using federal dollars to do things to pit children against children and community against community.

But, you know, this is a -- this isn't a -- you know, I work across the country and I work across the aisle with so many, across the aisle constantly, all over, and everybody does understand that public school community, for us, is sacred. And it's sacred to both sides of the aisle. So that is what we are hoping for, but we're not putting our heads in the sand. We are constantly coordinating legal strategies and also sorts of other things just in case anything happens.

MS. GALLAGHER:Yeah, making sure that that infrastructure is there, especially for the title programs, Title I and Title II-A, for our members are critical. And we've been working with our national associations and our federal colleagues as well.

MR. MULGREW:Could you imagine if that happens, if that's allowed, the federal government ever tries to do that and we lose in court? That means every administration would be able to dole out federal dollars in the title programs based off of political needs and not off of the actual count of children in their state. It's a precedent that we cannot allow to happen.

MR. RUBIO:The destabilizing effect is too profound and we don't have time to experiment with children's lives. At the end of the day we've got to do what's best for them. So yeah, agreed.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:I think you probably agree with all of your colleagues.

MS. PERSON:We're preparing for all sorts of different scenarios. Massive loss of federal funds is -- is a fear. And we just saw yesterday, while at the same time we're talking about universal school meals, the federal government's talking about cutting it. Right? What does that mean for the State of New York?

And these are all scenarios that we're preparing for and particularly legal strategies and action to take to make sure that this doesn't happen.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:I think we're all going to be in this fight quite a bit. And yes, it involves smart legal strategies and pushing back over and over again. But hopefully you're right, this is an across-the-aisle issue in every state for everyone who cares about children.

Thank you.

MR. MULGREW:Thank you.

Assembly?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Simon.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:So thank you for your testimony.

So I have questions for the UFT and for NYSUT with regard to this training pursuant to the $10 million to train 20,000 teachers last year in the science of reading. Can you tell me how that's kind of divided up proportionally between the UFT and NYSUT and the city and --

MR. MULGREW:Yeah, it's roughly 40/60. But we use your -- we also have been using your actual Teacher's Choice support to do that work right now, which is why we have moved so quickly once we had this established.

And that's why we always look to your support for that, that teach -- we have professional credits, which you know, you guys passed the law teachers are required to have CTLE credits, a certain number of CTLE credits every year. And by far the Teacher Centers of the State of New York, as an entity, have given thousands and thousands of CTLE credits, way past anybody else. And that has now become the foundational piece for training and support for educators.

And thankfully we have grown them, and we've been very entrepreneurial by working with the Department of Ed, working with principals, to figure out how to make these things work.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:Okay. And about how many teachers have been trained so far?

MS. PERSON:We are somewhere around 3,000, was my last count.

MR. MULGREW:On the Back to Basics? Yeah, on the Back to Basics, yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:And then who's doing a better job?

(Laughter.)

MR. MULGREW:Hmm? We work in conjunction. We work in conjunction. But you have to -- at the same time, at the same time, on the science of reading, we've trained over -- just this year alone, we've trained close to 40,000 teachers in that part of the Back to Basics. But we were doing that because of the year before.

MR. RUBIO:And we really do work together, with our teacher centers, partner with our principals and their scheduling and what we're looking at, and we're training -- we're all working for the benefit of our students, exactly.

(Overtalk.)

ASSEMBLYWOMAN SIMON:That's good to hear. I just was checking. Thank you. All righty, thank you.

MR. RUBIO:And we're getting the same level of supports to train school leaders and everyone.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Hooks?

(Off the record.)

ASSEMBLYWOMAN HOOKS:Thank you all for your testimony today. I have several questions, but I'm going to kind of just piggyback off of what my colleague Pheffer Amato said.

I was also wondering as far as what she said about, you know, yes, I'm a strong supporter of Tier 6, and just what's next, what else could we do. And I appreciate your answer, but I have a question.

Do you have an average of health-professions positions at school as well as assistant principals at schools that are vacant?

MR. RUBIO:Say the question again? Do we have --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN HOOKS:Do you have a number, according to our New York City schools, for health professionals as well as assistant principal positions that are vacant?

Because I heard you say, Mr. Mulgrew, how the lack of health professionals is becoming a crisis. And I would just want to know what that number looks like, what's that crisis number look like?

MR. RUBIO:I can tell you there is a serious concern about paraprofessionals, the need for paraprofessionals, the students not getting their IEP needs met. I know we have a City Council hearing in New York City tomorrow.

So what I might tell you, it is a huge crisis, the number of students needing IEPs is exploding. And our principals either have not been getting the funding or can't find someone that's willing to take that job. Right? And so we've got to do a lot of work on that side. And principals are stressed about it, right? We want to make sure we meet those needs.

On the assistant principal side, it's clear we have postings that say what these vacancies are. In our particular case we are seriously concerned. It's the one thing, Assemblywoman, that I lose sleep over, and that's the safety of our kids. And I don't want to be here one day saying that something happened in a school when I've been advocating to have an assistant principal in every school building in New York City.

Principals call out sick, they are out of their buildings on professional development, they're entitled to take annual leave days. And if there is not an administrator in the building in the event of an emergency -- every other one, every other person is a teacher in front a classroom or haven't been trained in how to respond. And so we just want to make sure that we have that level of safety for our children.

Thank you for the question.

MR. MULGREW:We were able to increase the number of nurses because during COVID the nurse was the number-one person in every building. We are not -- we still do not have a nurse in every building. So that is something we're constantly focused on. This is ridiculous. During COVID everyone praised the nurses, everyone wanted a nurse in every school building. They were dictating the policies inside of the school itself.

In terms of paraprofessionals, they are mainline for a lot of crisis intervention. When we negotiate, the Department of Ed knows that their salaries are too low, which is really a problem. The Department of Ed tells us they agree. But they say, We have pattern bargaining, so if you want them to have a raise, everybody else in your union has to give up part of their raise to pay them.

In what planet are these people talking from?

MR. RUBIO:Absolute nonsense.

MR. MULGREW:What company would say, oh, you're right, we can't attract these workers, so everybody else who works here, you have to give up your raise to pay for them. What kind of crap are we dealing with?

And the state and the City of New York have always lived by, Well, it's pattern bargaining, there's nothing we can do about it. They probably go back in the room and laugh like little jackals. Sorry.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Giglio.

MR. RUBIO:He's right.

(Laughter.)

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:So I agree with Tier 6 also. It definitely needs a fix. I mean, it's long -- and when you talk about mental health issues of students, I have spoken to teachers that have mental issues from dealing with students all day, and some of them being extremely difficult, so -- and I know that you're managing your teachers and the people that work for you. So thank you for that.

When it comes to community schools and their success, I'd like you to just talk a little bit about that -- because we talked earlier about the graduation rates in New York City being 83 percent -- and whether or not the community schools you think would be instrumental in raising that rate of graduation.

MR. RUBIO:The answer is simple: Yes. I mean, it's in our testimony. It is game-changing for any community to have, to be a hub and provide those services to children.

But I'll give some of my time to my colleague.

MS. GALLAGHER:Absolutely yes, the same thing. We have so many communities -- we'll just take Schenectady, in the Capital Area, where they're pulling in those services from the community right into the school to save instructional time.

But more importantly, we also have to look at how the funding for community schools is also provided. Right now some of it is taken out of the Foundation Aid set-asides. So, you know, we want more community schools.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:But at least it's transparent as to how they're spending the money.

MS. GALLAGHER:Yes.

MR. RUBIO:Yeah, and it answers the need of our mental health services. Our families on their own can't find them. And it's not just the student, but it's also services to the family holistically. You know, healing the child and the family. Unless you're meeting those needs, they're not going to learn algebra. It's going to be very hard to read.

So I think that would be a game-changer, absolutely.

MR. MULGREW:It was not the function of the school originally to be the social safety net for every community, but that's what it has become. It's just factually true. Schools are being asked to solve with every issue that all the families in the community are dealing with. I know that we spend millions and -- tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars on the social safety net, but in the end, you know you're going to get more bang for your buck at the school itself. So that clearly will help.

But when it comes to the graduation rates, one of the other things that was spoken about quite a bit here today is New York City's graduation rate is at 83 percent -- but of the 100,000 students in CTE programs, it's at 91 percent.

So the answer is there. So let's just get moving towards it. Because what -- if you take the 100,000 students in CTE that are at 91 percent, what would happen to the graduation rate then? So that's what's pulling it up. So we know what works. Let's get to it. Let's come up with a better way to help support that work.

MR. RUBIO:There's over a hundred years of educators here at the table. The secret to school success is really not a secret. It's really not a secret. It's about aligning those resources.

Melinda?

MS. PERSON:I would just end with every dollar you invest in community schools brings a $6 return on investment. This is well-researched, it has been proven. We're asking in our testimony for a hundred million dollar investment so that we can double the number of community schools in the state. And we think it is going to turn the state around.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN GIGLIO:That's wonderful. Thank you all.

MS. PERSON:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblywoman Jackson.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Yes, leave it to the social worker.

Let me say this. I'm going to plus-one on the CTE schools, because that's exactly where I was a social worker at. And our graduation rate was at a 98 percent. And it's only because one student didn't pass -- I mean, didn't graduate within the -- by June, graduated later on.

So we will do everything that we have to do to make sure we include more money in the budget for CTE, for community schools, for teacher centers -- all of that works.

But I have to say this. My favorite teacher is my mom. She's a teacher out in Brooklyn. Teacher's Choice reimbursement is $250. She's already spent $350. What are your thoughts on a tax credit for professionals who buy school supplies?

MR. MULGREW:I think it's a phenomenal idea.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Okay.

MR. MULGREW:Okay? And let's -- and you -- I mean, the teachers will spend more -- and it's not just teachers. Last year -- and I thank you for making available to City of New York billions of dollars for the migrant crisis, but for some reason teachers had to keep buying food, clothing and everything else for the migrants. I don't know why New York City did not try to implement those funds in an appropriate way.

I should stop on that now.

(Laughter; overtalk.)

MR. RUBIO:My wife's a teacher. The answer is absolutely yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:So the answer is yes.

MR. RUBIO:She spends more than $300, but yes.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Exactly.

MR. MULGREW:Yes, but a state tax credit would clearly be something -- and it is part of -- Melinda wants to talk to this. It's clearly something we're saying we need to look at.

And it also -- you have to remember once you do it for a couple of years, we will be able to see how many teachers across the state are actually participating in that.

MS. GALLAGHER:And I would be remiss if I didn't say also I love the way that you word it, all educators. Because certainly our building principals, when all those kids come in --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Social workers, I think we got 150 back, but we definitely spent way more than that.

And just on the topic of social workers, what are your thoughts on removing the license to -- removing the exam for social workers to be licensed? Would that create more social workers in the system? Are you guys opposed or --

MR. MULGREW:We are talking -- we're going to let our social workers define our final position.

But I do understand that New York State has this test that has clearly become an impediment in terms of us raising the number of social workers we would have access to. And that's -- until our social workers come to us with their final position, that's where we're at.

MS. PERSON:Agreed. Same.

MR. RUBIO:Don't know enough about it, but you asked a question earlier, Assemblywoman, about the adequate number of social workers. We need significantly more.

I know as a high school principal alone -- very quickly, in 20 seconds, I inherited a school with 2,000 kids, a high school with a 62 percent graduation rate. One of the first things I did, I had guidance counselors with a caseload of over 600 and I gave them 250 kids and I had one and a half social workers that I shared, and that alone -- if you can't take care of their needs, they're not going to learn algebra, social studies, global studies.

My -- when I left that school, it was at 89 percent graduation rate.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JACKSON:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblymember Maher.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Thank you.

So I really enjoyed especially the candor. It's been a lot of fun to hear some of your responses. It's been educational, too, for me.

I'm new to the Education Committee, but not new obviously to the process and having children and being, you know, the family member of a mother and brothers and my wife, who are all teachers.

(Overtalk.)

MR. MULGREW:That must have been interesting.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:No, it's -- a lot of them. Most of my family's teachers.

So one area that I think we can be a little creative, speaking about CTE, I'm a former village mayor and a former town supervisor, and one thing we did was we identified a lot of our municipal-owned properties that are vacant. And I've seen a lot of collaborations with cities and towns and school districts and/or nonprofits to donate a building for a dollar, now they don't have to have the maintenance costs, and it saves districts money on different projects.

And I know in upstate New York a lot of our challenges with BOCES, and even students' participation, is the transportation to and from the BOCES Center.

So has there been discussions of utilizing some of these municipal-owned properties, or school-owned properties, in a way that doesn't compete with BOCES but supplants the efforts?

MS. PERSON:I have not heard about those discussions yet, but I would definitely be interested in entertaining them.

I know BOCES are getting increasingly creative about sites. BOCES programs are actually locating themselves within school districts now, when their space allows. But the process by which BOCES get capital projects approved is labor-intensive, and so there are some things that we could do in that regard as well as to make sure that they have access to the facilities that they need.

MS. GALLAGHER:We recently -- not a discussion that I've heard. However, it was prevalent when we were talking about expanding districts in universal pre-K when they were talking about collaborations with daycares and trying to find that fit.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Yeah, that's the biggest issue. There's not real universal pre-K because there's just not enough seats to go around and use the funding.

MR. RUBIO:I was just going to say I have had conversations with the department in the city around -- and City Council folks about identifying properties in neighborhoods where we need schools, and repurposing buildings as well. I think it's an important thing that we can do.

We're having office space that's getting freed up in New York City. We have high schools that are in office buildings already, and taking that space to create schools and lower class size. So those are all things that I think I've had conversations with the administration about.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Maybe coming from all of you in your leadership positions, having some municipalities and even school districts do an inventory of buildings that are vacant and could be reused to start might be something that would be worth exploring.

The last thing I'll say is I'd love to get your opinion, as someone who graduated public school, a very huge advocate for public schools -- but I also sympathize and support a lot of our parents who choose to homeschool their children. And I know the letter of substantial equivalency can be an issue when school districts do not allow it, and it could impact kids getting the funding for college and a variety of other issues.

Where do you guys stand on that letter of equivalency?

MR. MULGREW:We're going to get ding-donged, but --

(Timer chiming; laughter.)

MS. GALLAGHER:To be continued.

MR. MULGREW:What the process would go right now at SED for that is where that should be interjected --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you. Thank you very much.

There are no other legislators wishing to ask questions, so this is your dismissal.

MR. MULGREW:Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:You are the guardians of our future. Keep up the good work. Thank you for all that you do.

Panel B: Conference of Big 5 School Districts; Buffalo Public Schools; Rochester City School District; Syracuse City School District; Yonkers Public Schools; Mount Vernon Public Schools; City School District of Albany; and Utica Public Schools.

(Off the record.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:(Mic off.)

-- Buffalo's not here. Is that the case?

MS. PYLE:Buffalo was here. They had a pressing matter in the district, and thought they'd be on earlier, so she had to leave just a bit ago. She did submit written testimony.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:All right.

So do we have any specific order that we're going to do this?

MS. PYLE:We're alphabetical by district, the Big 5 and then our affiliate districts, if that's okay with you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay, the Big 5 and then the Little 2 that you added on there.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:I know how that works.

MS. PYLE:It will be like the Little 3.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:That's the Little 3. You picked up Albany now, right? So you've got Albany, Mount Vernon, and Utica, is that how it goes?

MS. PYLE:Correct. Correct. We're all here.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:The Big 5 and the Little 3. All right, Jennifer, you -- oh. Before we start the clock, can everyone identify themselves?

MS. PYLE:Sure. Jennifer Pyle, executive director of the Conference of Big 5 School Districts.

ROCHESTER SUPT. STRICKLAND:Good afternoon, Demario Strickland, interim superintendent of the Rochester City School District.

SYRACUSE SUPT. DAVIS:Anthony Davis, superintendent of Syracuse City School District.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Anibal Soler, superintendent, Yonkers Public Schools.

ALBANY SUPT. HOCHREITER:Joseph Hochreiter, superintendent in Albany and founding member of the Big 5.

(Laughter.)

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:Good afternoon. I'm Dr. K. Veronica Smith, acting superintendent of Mount Vernon City School District.

UTICA SUPERINTENDENT SPENCE:Good afternoon. Dr. Christopher Spence, superintendent of Utica City School District.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Welcome all.

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:Thank you.

MS. PYLE:So good afternoon, folks. As I just said, I'm Jennifer Pyle. I serve as executive director of the Conference of Big 5 School Districts, representing Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers, Albany, Mount Vernon, and Utica city school districts.

Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to testify before you today, and for your unwavering commitment to meeting the needs of the urban school districts in New York State.

We're pleased that the Executive Budget draws upon the Rockefeller Institute of Government's recommendations and proposes adjustments to the existing Foundation Aid formula that would update the poverty measures embedded so that they more accurately reflect current demographics in our communities. This is a good start.

However, it's imperative that the state thoughtfully consider all of the Rockefeller Institute's far-reaching and comprehensive recommendations and commit to a Foundation Aid formula that is transparent, predictable, and distributes funding in an equitable manner reflective of unique student needs.

In particular, we urge you to make adjustments to the formula's Regional Cost Index to ensure it adequately reflects variations in the cost of delivering services in different parts of the state.

In addition, the state must recognize that resource allocation decisions are best managed by experienced educators at the local level. The Rockefeller Institute recommended elimination of the set-aside requirements, and we urge you to take action to afford school districts the ability to target funding where it is most needed.

Lastly, we appreciate the Executive's proposed maintenance of full funding of expense-based aids. However, we strongly oppose the November database freeze.

All of our school districts remain deeply concerned about our students' mental health and are well aware of the dangers of excessive cellphone use. We appreciate the Governor's focus on this important topic.

However, we're very concerned that a one-size-fits-all approach could prove challenging for a plethora of reasons, including the climate of fear that's been brought on by actions taken at the federal level in communities, including ours, across the state.

We are already hearing firsthand that children are expressing fears about having no easy way to keep in touch with their families during the school day. They're deeply concerned that their parents will not be there when they return home at the end of the day. And again, we recognize that these are issues that would have to be managed, and you can't have students on their phones all day. But again, these are situations where we would know what to do, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate.

We also question the need for additional reporting, and we strongly believe that all children must be provided with robust media literacy education.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Ms. Pyle.

MS. PYLE:Thank you.

ROCHESTER SUPT. STRICKLAND:So great afternoon again. I am Dr. Demario Strickland, interim superintendent of the Rochester City School District.

I want to extend a special thank you to the chairs of this committee, the Rochester delegation, and the entire Legislature. I am grateful for your unwavering commitment to meeting the unique needs of our district.

This year the district launched Invest in Tomorrow, a comprehensive school reconfiguration plan designed to enhance learning and extracurricular opportunities for students with highly qualified staff and diverse programming. This initiative aims to meet the varied interests of our students while addressing the enrollment decline we have experienced for over a decade.

Additionally, we are excited to embark on phase 3 of the facilities modernization program. This multi-million-dollar initiative will deliver modernized state-of-the-art facilities for our students and staff.

Rochester is one of the districts with the highest needs in New York State, and the following are several key policies that the Board of Education and I have outlined for this year. We are grateful that the Executive Budget reflects an increase in our Foundation Aid allocation. As you are aware, the funds are used to effectively address the unique needs of students, particularly those with special programming. This adjustment will ensure that educational resources are allocated appropriately, fostering a more inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Additionally, these funds will support professional development for our educators in implementing research-based reading strategies.

We implore you to place a moratorium on adding charter schools and expanding current schools. Currently, 29 percent of public school students in the City of Rochester attend charter schools. This year we will pay more than $141 million in charter school tuition. Furthermore, this proportionate number of special-needs and ELL students our district serves contributes to higher costs associated with their education.

It is important to highlight that this situation creates an uneven playing field. This inequity requires immediate attention to ensure a fair and sustainable education system for all students. We request that you limit charter school saturation in urban centers and designate the New York State Board of Regents as the sole charter-authorizing entity.

In the coming years, we must enhance and expand our technological resources and formally request another round of funding through the Smart Schools Bond Act.

And finally, we also request the expansion of specialized aid and career and technical education. The funding cap of 3900 per student requires an increase.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Mr. Strickland.

SYRACUSE SUPT. DAVIS:Good afternoon. I'm Anthony Davis, the superintendent of Syracuse City School District, and I would like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be here today to discuss the Executive Budget from the perspective of the Big 5 -- more specifically, students in Syracuse.

We are thankful that the Governor has taken into consideration the Rockefeller report on the Foundation Aid formula and has incorporated some of the recommendations changing the allocation of funding for Syracuse that has benefited our district. This change has had a positive effect on funding, but we recognize that there are more changes that are needed in order for this formula to be equitable for our school districts and students in New York State.

We have over 20 percent of our students in need of special education services, and another 20 percent that are English language learners in our district. So further revisions are needed to be made to be equitable for our students in our district.

Due to the expiration of federal stimulus funding through sources like ARPA, we will need continued state aid increases in funding to adequately address the academic, social-emotional and technological needs of our students. Post-COVID our district has experienced a dramatic change in the needs of our students and families. Our schools are looked upon by our community as a safe place to go for assistance, and we have an obligation to do all we can to assist them.

Whether it's through community schools, after-school and summer school programming, our partnerships with mental health providers are things that we concentrate on constantly.

As you may know, Syracuse continues to be the poorest -- one of the poorest communities in the state. In fact, on recent Census data, Syracuse's child poverty rate is one of the highest in the nation.

We strongly believe that education is the way to break this cycle of generational poverty, but we need students to be in school in order for them to excel. We request that additional funding is allocated to districts that are experiencing chronic absenteeism, which is an issue facing many of our schools today.

As our district embarks on the first regional STEAM high school in the state, with a cohort of ninth-grade students in September of 2025, Special Services Aid and additional Career and Technical Education funding must be allocated in our education funding. We have expanded our CTE programs to over 30, and are even implementing exploratory programs in our middle schools so that our students have opportunities when these opportunities come to fruition in Central New York. A state aid formula that excludes ninth-graders in the calculation needs to be evaluated and adjusted.

Finally I'd just like to touch base on reading intervention initiatives, as the Governor has continued to champion a focus on literacy.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you, Mr. Davis.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Good afternoon, Chairpersons Krueger, Pretlow, Mayer, Benedetto, distinguished members of the committees, and of course the Yonkers state delegation.

My name is Anibal Soler, Jr., and I'm the proud superintendent of Yonkers Public Schools. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the 24,000 students that I proudly serve.

Before I begin, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Yonkers state delegation for their continued advocacy and support over the many years. Your collective efforts have laid the foundation for what has become a remarkable story of progress.

My message today, though, is simple: Protect our progress, protect the investment, protect Yonkers Public Schools.

I may be new to Yonkers Public Schools, but this isn't a new problem. Year after year, Yonkers comes here with the same issue. This isn't about failed leadership, it's just about having the vision to fix a flawed funding formula. We are New York's third largest school system and are the only one in the Big 5 graduating students at a 90 percent rate, an accomplishment everyone should be proud of across the state, an accomplishment we must protect.

However, today I'm here to sound the alarm. This progress in investment is at a significant risk -- we're facing a $68 million budget structural gap, a structural deficit which we simply cannot solve on our own. We have minimal reserves and using them entirely to close this gap would be reckless.

Last year we made tough decisions -- we eliminated a hundred positions, and we closed two schools. Now we're seeing the impact of that across our classrooms in the quality of education we are providing. An example is that our current ratio of counselor to students is one to every 500.

If we're forced to cut further, the results will be devastating, including additional reductions to staff, rightsizing the school system, the elimination of after-school programs and potentially athletics, limited access to technology. These cuts would jeopardize the graduation rate that we've worked so hard to achieve.

The funding formula simply does not work for Yonkers. While Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse have most of their costs covered by the state, Yonkers has relied on local taxpayers contributing over $498 million over the past 13 years. The Foundation Aid formula penalizes Yonkers due to high property values in Westchester County, with our costs, similar to New York City's, far exceeding our funding.

Adjusting the Regional Cost Index would bring an additional $22 million to our district.

Adding to our challenges are unfunded mandates like the Heat Index Bill and proposed policies like the statewide cellphone ban. This is about fairness, and Yonkers sets the standard for what's possible in a diverse urban community. Our students deserve to have the same funding opportunities as their peers.

I urge you to address the gap and protect Yonkers Public Schools. Fix the funding formula and fund a learning environment that doesn't bankrupt our students from an educational experience like many of the districts that surround us in Westchester County. Let us fund a school experience for our students that we all can be proud of.

ALBANY SUPT. HOCHREITER:Good afternoon. I'm Joseph Hochreiter, superintendent of the City School District of Albany. And thank you for allowing us to share our budget priorities.

The State of New York has made significant progress in recent years, delivering fiscal equity for students, families and taxpayers in high-needs school districts, including Albany. In our school district, the fulfilled promise to fully fund Foundation Aid for all New York districts by the '23-'24 school year closed an annual shortfall of more than 26 million here in Albany.

As one of New York's urban school districts that for years was underfunded and under-resourced, as a result we relied on our taxpayers due to these funding inequities and are grateful that we are able to reach a newly level playing field.

We continue to be grateful for the state's commitment to equity and your recognition of our community's unique needs. This is reflected in the recommendations brought forward last month by the Rockefeller Institute of Government to retool the state's funding formula, and in the Executive Budget that the Governor recently proposed.

In particular, we're heartened by the Rockefeller's recommendations to modernize poverty measures, take into account cost-of-living differences across the state, support school districts with large and growing enrollments of English language learners, and change the formula to remove elements better treated as categorical aids, such as funding for students with disabilities.

We applaud the Governor for reflecting this commitment in her budget proposal as well as her plan to maintain the important hold-harmless process for school districts.

It's clear that the thoughtful and inclusive process in which the state is engaged brought New York significantly closer to fair and equitable school funding. We ask that you maintain this focus on funding equity and the unique needs of individual school districts and communities as you plan to support the needs of all students in New York.

With these fundamentals in mind, our school district has identified the following priorities. We ask that you continue to identify and address the unique challenges of individual school districts. Right here in the state's capital city, those challenges include 63 percent of our property is tax-exempt; one in three children live in poverty; and the oversaturation of charter schools in Albany is among the highest.

We also are a federally designated resettlement city, a fact in which we take great pride. Our enrollment of English language learners has grown more than 35 percent last year and comprises 20 percent of our total enrollment.

We continue to advocate for funding for pre-kindergarten. This is especially important in high-needs districts like ours who were early implementers of full-day pre-K but hampered by an outdated formula.

We know you're aware of the ominous statistics of the future of teaching in New York. We salute the meaningful steps the state has taken to address these looming changes. We urge you to continue to develop new pathways that will break through barriers that make it difficult for school districts to create and sustain "grow your own" programs. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:Good afternoon. Thank you, honorable members of the New York State Legislature for providing us an opportunity to provide testimony.

I want to take the opportunity to thank the chairs of these committees and the entire Legislature, but I want to specifically thank Gary Pretlow and Shelley Mayer for all the support that they've provided to the Mount Vernon City School District. And I look forward to meeting with you on Friday.

As the acting superintendent for Mount Vernon City School District, I appreciate the opportunity to address you and discuss our priorities for the Executive Budget and its impact on our district.

In better times, I would love to be here talking about Mount Vernon's academic achievements and education priorities for the next school year. But the current fiscal and structural state of the district must be put in the forefront. While we have numerous challenges, I will keep this to four major priorities.

So recently the New York Comptroller designated Mount Vernon City School District one of two school districts classified as being significantly in fiscal distress. Basically, this is significant because we have a decline in enrollment coupled with increased student needs. So while our enrollment several years ago used to be about 10,000, it's down to 6,500. However, the needs of our students are increasing tremendously. So this decline represents 1,577 students, or 19.6 percent during this period. There's a forecast that by 2033, we'll have an enrollment of 5,168.

Because of this declined enrollment and because of our fiscal constraints, we plan -- while the board voted for us to close three schools and we're doing a restructuring of our buildings, we are hoping to pull ourselves out of the hole that we're in and we believe that we'll have a path forward. And we want to be able to educate our students in the same way that -- the surrounding neighborhoods have wealth, and we want to be able to give our students everything that they have.

So although we have this decline, we still need to educate our students. Although we're in fiscal distress, we still need to educate our students. Over the last five years our general-fund costs for special-needs students have increased from 39 million to 60 million. This accounts for over 22 percent of the budget.

UTICA SUPERINTENDENT SPENCE:Good afternoon. This is Dr. Spence of the Utica City School District. It's a pleasure to be in your company today, and I'm privileged to represent our district.

So our mission here since we've come in is pretty clear. We're working to enhance educational opportunities and enhance educational attainment and occupational attainment. The challenge is sustainability for us.

One of the things that we're focusing on primarily is our new capital improvement project for our career and technical education so we can expand pathways to higher-wage employment once our students exit the secondary system. That new innovative idea comes with additional costs -- administrative costs, maintaining the facilities, et cetera, et cetera.

Additionally, when we look at some of the other initiatives that we're working to employ to really provide wraparound services for our students as they come with diverse challenges and needs, we've extended our extended-day learning opportunities. And so far we've done it for half a year with a budget of about 3.2 million, which will probably be double that and which will escalate.

So as we're working to address these needs and really wrap our arms around these children with the different program attributes, it's the sustainability that we're concerned about. Just to run off some numbers, approximately 82 percent of our general-fund budget is supported by state aid, and property taxes make up approximately 12 percent of the revenue. This limits the district's opportunity to raise revenue to support escalating costs associated with contractual obligations and benefits to support students.

Foundation Aid accounts for over 75 percent of our state aid package, which was previously provided to districts to pay for any and all expenses as the district deemed necessary. However, the percentage allocated to the C4E set-aside continues to increase, which specifies what the money can be used for. So again, we're working to maximize and utilize the budget in ways that will provide greater opportunities for our students, but we're also thinking about the sustainability of the programming that we're working to implement.

In addition to that, we again -- us being a very diverse district, we have our ELL students, special-education students, about 84 percent of the district is economically disadvantaged. And when you stack that classification of students, it equates with a variety of assets that students bring, but also challenges in regards to educating the students as well because we sometimes need more staff to address some of the issues that we experience.

So again, we are coordinating our existing resources in a way that will have the maximum impact, but we're also thinking about sustainability in the long term.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you. Thank you one and all.

Assemblyman Magnarelli.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Hello, everyone. And a couple of people at the table I do know. Mr. Davis, how are you?

SYRACUSE SUPT. DAVIS:I'm well, sir, how are you?

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Good. And thank you. Thank you all for coming. I only get three minutes too.

The superintendent of Syracuse understands what I'm about to say because we've been working together. Okay? Chronic absenteeism is something that affects everybody across the state. I'm sure it's affecting all your school districts as well as Syracuse, maybe one a little bit more than the other.

What I've come to see from the few meetings that we've had with other stakeholders is that school districts have to partner with other stakeholders in the community in order to really make a dent in absenteeism. Whether it's county social services, the police, the district attorney's office, there's a lot of people that have to be talked to and brought together to the table. Okay?

I feel also, though, that not only with chronic absenteeism -- the same holds true for other social services. Because I don't believe that schools are the answer to all the social ills of our community.

So what are our school districts doing to bring those other community partners to the table? That's my question. Anybody can answer.

SYRACUSE SUPT. DAVIS:Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you for your partnership, because you've been able to bring many of the right people to the table that we've been able to benefit from their expertise.

And I think we've modeled that in other areas. So we're doing a lot of work with some of the hospitals towards our mental health services. So I think we're doing the same model, but we're just doing it in different areas of our needs. So I think we've created an environment where people are willing to come to the table because they see the work that we're trying to do, and we're trying to do it as a full community.

So I think we've had a solid impact on how we apply and how we approach some of these.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAGNARELLI:Okay.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:And I know I'm not Syracuse, but I'd like to add to the response.

I think you heard from the previous panel, community schools is a solution to chronic absenteeism. It makes the school the hub for the community. You embed resources, health clinics, social/emotional. You extend the school day, you go into weekends. You provide meals. Community schools is a solution that would help address.

So I would say, you know, we're trying to do that in Yonkers, that we have three community schools out of our 40 campuses. As we relaunch our strategic plan, to me that's going to be one of our fundamental pillars, is that we launch more community schools. You know, schools that are grounded in neighborhoods, that have resources in there.

Everybody knows how to get to school. The issue is can we disrupt the other things that take them out of school, like doctor's visits, maybe immunizations, things that we know are inherent barriers to sometimes our kids coming to schools. Making sure there's safe pathways to school, making sure that, you know, if we have kids go to schools more in their neighborhoods, we are less likely to have -- or they're more likely to have a safer pathway to school.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Senator?

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:Thank you.

Senator Shelley Mayer.

SENATOR MAYER:Well, thank you to all of you for coming. Thank you for highlighting the real challenges of urban school districts.

First, you know, thank you, Mr. Soler, for your leadership in Yonkers. And I know the leader's not here, but Gary and I also represent parts of Yonkers as well as Assemblyman Sayegh.

The Regional Cost Index is something that we have pushed to have addressed. It was referenced in the report, but it was included in the Governor's proposal. You identified it as bringing $22 million more, which would be a significant shift adjustment.

Without that, and without additional money, are you suggesting you would have to lay off staff again, as was the threat last year?

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Yeah, I think the challenge -- and you guys know this better than me, because you've been in Yonkers longer than I have -- is the structural deficit. You know, every time when the runs come out, our dependence -- you know, the poverty rates don't work in our favor, given the county that we are located in.

So if we don't get additional support in some form or fashion, we are looking right now currently, with the runs that were given by the Governor's office, at a $68 million structural gap. We could use some of our reserves, but I will be clear to say we used the reserves last year, 40 million of it, to help cover the gap, which only leaves us 30 million left. And so when you look at our reserves in comparison to similar-sized school systems, we are very much at the bare end of it.

And if we use it, we could cut it in half, but next year the challenge is even greater.

SENATOR MAYER:Yeah, I understand very well. We -- the Governor does propose to change the poverty measures and not use the old poverty measures. And that does have an impact on Yonkers which, even under her proposal, does increase. And I spoke to the mayor about that.

I did want to ask Dr. Smith about we know Mount Vernon -- thank you for your acknowledgement -- has really severe challenges this coming year. What is necessary in order to get Mount Vernon onto firmer footing?

And are you supportive of having a fiscal monitor? I don't know if you were here when we asked Commissioner Rosa about that. And I think there is openness to proposing a fiscal monitor for Mount Vernon.

How do you feel about that?

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:I'm very open to having a fiscal monitor. You know, we've had challenges. You know, I'm sitting in this seat because of what appears to be mismanagement of grants.

But our problem is -- there's many. We have transportation that went up to 19 million from 12. We've had our fiscal structure that we're worrying about. You know that at the beginning of the school year we had a ceiling that collapsed in the building --

SENATOR MAYER:Yes.

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:-- and we had to delay school opening.

Having a monitor to me will be good. I'm the acting superintendent, and I think that it would be extremely helpful to have a fiscal monitor.

SENATOR MAYER:Thank you. Good to know that. Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman Maher.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. And I definitely can see that a lot of your concerns are geared towards providing funding. It's important to a lot of the work that you're doing, and you're doing some great work. And we all appreciate that.

When it comes to the formula in Foundation Aid, I think you're going to see a bipartisan support, as you've seen over the years, understanding, really understanding and listening to all of you, the concerns. Hopefully we'll be able to get to a place where the Governor can come along and we can make that better.

However, most of the school districts that I have talked to north of New York City are talking about an issue that I really don't even want to bring up, but it's that big of an issue. With all the funding challenges that you have, I'm very curious to know if you all agree that we should put a pause on the 2027 electric bus mandate that you all have to deal with and you all have to forecast for and put money towards.

How are your feelings towards that? Do you agree that it should at least be a pause? And this is coming from someone who believes electric vehicles is the future, who absolutely believes that we should limit our fossil fuels. We absolutely need to. But I have my concerns and believe that we should study this more and pause it. How do you guys feel?

MS. PYLE:Just -- I'll make a brief statement, then turn it over.

So we have concerns. Keep in mind, though, in most cases we don't -- we own very, very few buses. So we contract out for the lower grades, and for high school most everyone uses municipal buses. So we've been concerned all along about the implications for the rates we will pay, which are already very, very high. And frankly upstate there's very limited competition. So again, it's a little bit different because we don't own our own fleets.

I'm going to let them jump in.

UTICA SUPERINTENDENT SPENCE:I can just speak to the infrastructure. You know, in the City of Utica we don't have the infrastructure to build a grid to sustain that. And, you know, absent eminent domain, we don't have the ability to find that property to really build and then, you know, implement that.

And then against the -- the costs will be conferred to the districts. So again, it comes down to the rate and sustainability.

ALBANY SUPT. HOCHREITER:I'll just add a brief point to what Jennifer mentioned. We finally in Albany are at pre-COVID bus rides and numbers through our contractors. And this year alone, our costs for contracting bus services is up 30 percent. So I can only imagine what it will be when some of these mandates come into play.

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:Do we agree that we should probably pause it? That 2027 deadline is coming up, and you're already going to have to spend money to adhere to it. Do we agree that a pause probably makes a little bit of sense?

MS. PYLE:That's something that I think we'll have to have additional conversations on. And as far as an organization, we don't take a position. And yes, it's unanimous. So we will need to have -- they can certainly give their personal views, but we have to have a little more conversation on this. But we certainly --

ASSEMBLYMAN MAHER:I appreciate your candor. Thank you. Thank you all.

MS. PYLE:Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Assemblyman Otis?

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:It's great to hear from all of you, and certainly I'll just share I've been tracking equity in education funding issues for many, many years, going back to a few decades ago when there was something called the transition aid cap, which generally hurt the Big 5 school districts. One of the worst damaged by that was the Rochester School District. And so we're in a new world today with Foundation Aid and the funding increases in the last few years.

Curious if any of you have this handy; it would be good to have from you after the fact. Where are you trending in the last few years in terms of how much you're spending per student? Because one of the concerns has been that you're not given the resources to spend what you need to spend compared to other districts.

MS. PYLE:I think folks are saying they'd like to get back to you with regard to that data.

While, you know, I think the per-pupil costs overall you'll see have gone up, that's been due to contractual obligations because no one has had the resources apart from the influx of federal funds to increase spending. All of our districts face structural deficits. That being said, it's not because they're overstaffed or, you know, providing a plethora of services that they don't need, it's just the matter that the funding is not in line with what their expenses are.

So they've worked very, very hard to reduce their staffing through attrition, retirements, other things so that they're not, you know, impacting folks negatively. But there's definitely impact on the classroom, particularly with the --

(Overtalk.)

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:Just in general, my perspective is we want you to be able to spend more per student. I wasn't looking at you to reduce, I'm looking for you to spend more, so ...

ROCHESTER SUPT. STRICKLAND:No, I was just going to reiterate that we are spending a large amount of dollars on our English language learners and our students with disabilities. But in retrospect, what happens is that equity shifts to them and it takes away from students that are general education.

So again, we continue to explain that we definitely are educating our most needy learners. Not saying that we don't want to do -- we educate any baby that comes in front of us. However, the costs that are associated with educating those two distinct student populations are definitely crippling districts, unfortunately.

MS. PYLE:And I think all of our districts are stable or declined with enrollment. However, there are more students that have been classified, and the students who are classified are requiring much more robust services.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Yeah, I would just, in the last 10 seconds -- students with needs, high needs, out-of-district placements is also a big driver of costs. So as we try to provide parents their choice and options, sometimes that's external, that drives our costs.

ASSEMBLYMAN OTIS:Thank you all. Thank you. You all have very important jobs. Thank you for what you do.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Hi, good afternoon. Thank you all for what you do. I think it's amazing to be the CEO, CFO and know everything under the hat for your districts.

So your testimony, a lot of it's about funding in the formula. Let me just ask -- and I don't know if I heard any of yours as we talk about recruitment and retention for teachers, are you short teachers? Just raise your hand, how's that? We'll go a little quicker.

So the recruitment challenges -- and let's take Tier 6 out of it, because I can see all your lips forming and your brains are saying that -- because we're sort of trained to say "Tier 6."

But where else do you find the challenges? If you could jump in really candidly. I'm chair of Government Employees and we look at that. We hear all the time that there's a retention but also a recruitment issue, that you need specialized -- you're sending kids out of the district, but you need specialized teachers. You don't have English language learning specialist teachers.

And what is the challenges you're having with recruitment? It's all up to you now to give me that feedback.

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:Well, I would like to respond to that.

In Mount Vernon, since we are surrounded by wealth, many of our school districts, they were able to pay much more than we could pay. Previously we used to recruit people from New York City because we paid more than them. But the Governor offered them an out, and they now pay more than us.

So in terms of recruitment, it becomes very difficult because we can't compete with our neighboring districts, and we're up now to negotiate, and that's been extremely difficult.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:I would just like to add I'd love to see some flexibility that you see in the private industry regarding microcredentialing. We know we did some exceptions around COVID. Everyone was fine to relax requirements around COVID when we needed staff, we needed virtual teachers, we needed instructors. I'd love to see a reintroduction.

I'd also love, given the uniqueness of our urban communities, allow us to microcredential paraprofessionals, teaching aides, folks we could work with. Let us build our own teacher pipelines that could follow whatever state guidance, but allow us to do it so we know that when we recruit you, we train you and hopefully you stay with us, you get credentialed and we can kind of expedite the certification process.

But I do know those things are a little bit more complicated, but --

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:So let me stop you there. So the state is saying that they've been really working to have recruitment -- you know, advertisements out there saying, Take a state job, you know, this is a great career path. Have you seen any of that? Like stating your older -- so maybe your high school student is going into a college program. Do you see that around the community that it's maybe enticing someone who might have not thought of a career as teaching, or para, and that path?

SYRACUSE SUPT. DAVIS:Somewhat. What I was -- fortunately I was here for the commissioner's testimony, and she spoke to some of the programs that they've put together. And one of the things I think is huge is for New York State to accept other certifications coming into the state.

That's been difficult over the years. People have experience in other places, but come here and have a difficult time being certified. So that would be of help.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER AMATO:Terrific, that's great. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

I have a couple of questions. I really don't know where to begin. I don't know if you were here earlier; I'm kind of stuck on this charter school issue and the adverse effects that charter schools are having on schools, especially the two districts that I represent who happen to both be at this table.

Have any of you calculated the additional cost per student as generated by the charter schools?

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Additional cost?

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:By that I mean if you take -- I'll just break it down. One child out of your school does not reduce your overall cost one penny. But you pay this charter school X amount of dollars, which then I'm saying divides that over the remaining students in your district. So there is an additional cost per student.

Has anyone figured that out?

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:No, we have not done that analysis.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay, I would kind of suggest you do, because I could use it as ammunition.

Someone told me that Mount Vernon's spending $37,000 a student. Is that true?

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:So, you know, that's a general sense. But for us, especially for students that go out of district, we could pay far more than that. It depends on the services they require.

If you have someone going to residential, if you have a special ed student, that they get transportation, they get OT, PT, special ed, they get -- we have a student --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:So Mount Vernon, it does not have a stellar record as far as academics in the eyes of the rest of the world. I'm not trying to be offensive, but it's true. It's paying $37,000 a student, and you're sending students to a charter school and the tuition that you pay them is based on $37,000 you're paying right now, am I correct?

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:And they take our brightest students.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Well, I went through all of that. I'm just being -- trying to get to the basics.

So the charter school tuition that you pay is based on what your cost per child is, which is higher than probably most districts in the state. So that's what I'm trying to -- I'm trying to address. That's why I was asking if you had the cost per student and why are you paying $37,000 a student when other districts are paying $24,000 a student. And when you -- you know, push that out, it's a big number.

MS. PYLE:We can circle back to you with that.

MOUNT VERNON ACTING SUPT. SMITH:Yeah.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay. So I have 32 seconds left, and I don't want to ask a question no one can answer. I think I'm meeting with you sometime in the very near future. And I have not met with you one-on-one yet. You're -- welcome home, this is your area, I know, your old stomping grounds. But I hear you're doing a good job.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:Appreciate it.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay, thank you.

YONKERS SUPT. SOLER:We'll be reaching out. We'll be reaching out for the one-on-one.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:All right, please do.

All right, thank you. Thank you, one and all. Thank you, Jennifer.

The next panel is Panel C: New York State Council of School Superintendents; New York State School Boards Association; Association of Business School Officials of New York; New York State Parent Teacher Association; the Rural Schools Association of New York; BOCES of New York State; and National Parents Union.

Before we start -- and then, before you start the clock, timekeeper, wherever you are, can everyone just go and tell real quickly -- and introduce themselves? And then -- where are we going to start? To the left, or the right?

Okay, that's fine with me. If you don't want to introduce yourselves, you don't have to, you can jump right into it.

CHAIRWOMAN KRUEGER:(Inaudible.)

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay.

(Laughter.)

MR. LOWRY:I'm Robert Lowry, I'm deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

MR. BUDELMANN:I'm Scott Budelmann, BOCES of New York State.

MS. BELOKOPITSKY:Hi, I'm Kyle Belokopitsky, executive director of New York State Parent Teacher Association.

MR. CECHNICKI:Brian Cechnicki, Association of School Business Officials of New York.

MR. FESSLER:Brian Fessler, New York State School Boards Association.

MR. LITTLE:Dave Little, I direct the Rural Schools Association.

MS. BAKER:Ashara Baker, New York State director of the National Parents Union.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay. Welcome all.

MR. LOWRY:Good afternoon. I am Robert Lowry from the New York State Council of School Superintendents. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for all your past support of our schools.

Governor Hochul's proposed budget for education is a welcome and dramatic turnaround from a year ago. The proposed 2 percent minimum Foundation Aid increase would help 56 percent of the state's districts, many of which would otherwise see that aid frozen for the second straight year, and 80 percent of that aid would go to average or high need districts.

Proposed changes to the state sharing ratio would drive more aid to below-average wealth districts. We were impressed by the report by the Rockefeller Institute on updating Foundation Aid. We don't agree with every one of its recommendations, but it does an admirable job of illuminating the strengths and weaknesses of virtually every aspect of the formula.

The Governor takes a sensible first step by proposing to replace outdated and flawed poverty measures. The Rockefeller report also makes a point that we have stressed: Proposed formula changes can't be understood in isolation. We need to evaluate combinations of reforms. We'll all be in a better position to evaluate the effects of possible changes once the entire school aid database is updated next month, as it is in every budget cycle. Efforts to update the formula should continue, and our submitted testimony identifies some areas that we would prioritize.

The Governor has proposed a new per-credit funding stream for dual-enrollment college and high school programs. Our members share frustrations about trying to launch and expand those programs in working with colleges. We'll be seeking more recommendations from them about how to improve access to those opportunities.

We also support increasing funding for career and technical education through BOCES and special services aid, as your one-house budgets in recent years have done. It's another strategy for helping to improve the transition from school to whatever comes next for young people.

Transitioning to an all-zero-emissions school bus fleet is a laudable aspiration, but the current prescribed timeline cannot be achieved. Our submitted testimony includes recommendations for a more realistic and reasonable transition that many of the groups here at this table have endorsed.

Most districts continue to struggle with at least some hiring shortages. Some desperately need another extension and the authority to employ retirees without a limit on earnings. If necessary to protect retirement system finances, we would support requiring employer contributions to continue on behalf of those retired workers.

And finally, Governor Hochul has been right to draw attention to the harmful effects of excessive online activity upon children and young people, but many school districts have already engaged parents, staff, and sometimes students to develop local policies that are well accepted and that are working. Any state mandate should allow discretion so that district stakeholders can develop policies that they feel will work best for their communities.

I'll add that --

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Thank you.

MR. LOWRY:-- also some of our members say it's addictive. Internet use is not just a school problem, it's a lifelong problem, and schools have a role to play in teaching about responsible use.

CHAIRMAN PRETLOW:Okay. Thank you.

MR. LOWRY:So thank you for your time.

MR. FESSLER:Thanks again. My name is Brian Fessler, with the New York State School Boards Association. Appreciate the opportunity to offer reactions to the Executive Budget on behalf of NYSSBA and the 676 member school boards we serve.

NYSSBA's encouraged to see a Foundation Aid proposal that returns to meaningful funding levels with crucial guaranteed minimum increases. While it's important to acknowledge that this proposal will not alleviate all budgetary challenges for all districts, NYSSBA is appreciative of the proposed school aid package.

Beyond the dollars itself, replacement of sorely outdated and imperfect student need data is consistent with recommendations NYSSBA has stressed in recent years. Over the next few years we encourage lawmakers to consider continued revisions to the formula, including how the property tax cap interplays with Foundation Aid, elimination of set-asides, and reviewing student-need weightings, among others.

We're also strongly supportive of the Governor's proposal for a truly universal school meals program. The benefits will be wide-ranging, including reliable access to nutrition for students across all income levels, reduction in socioeconomic stigma, and a more streamlined administrative process for school districts.

Also wanted to comment on the Governor's proposed ban on student use of smart devices. In numerous conversations with the Executive we have consistently expressed support for the focus on addressing student mental health challenges. At the same time, NYSSBA has stressed that we believe local districts and BOCES are best able to reflect the needs and priorities of their local communities.